The Amish Voice 7
Our physical heart is responsible for
pumping life-sustaining blood to the body.
The blood contains nutrients (food) and
oxygen that the body must have to live.
Even though it is a small organ, about the
size of a man’s hand, it pushes blood along
a 60,000-mile-long network of vessels!
These vessels are like straws that the
blood flows through. Some are large and
others are not much bigger that a human
hair. As long as we are alive the heart
beats. Even more amazing is that it beats
about 100,000 times a day, 40 million
times a year—in total, beating up to three
billion times over an average lifetime. It
keeps the body freshly supplied with oxy-
gen and nutrients, while clearing away
harmful waste matter.
The heart is located in the middle of the
chest, behind the breastbone and between
the lungs, in a moistened chamber that is
protected all around by the rib cage. It's
made up of a special kind of muscle
(cardiac muscle) that works involuntarily,
so we don't have to think about it. We call
it involuntary, but it does have to be told
to beat by electrical signals that are sent
from the brain to a chamber called the
“sinus node”. The signal then goes from
the sinus node to the heart and it beats.
All this happens without us thinking about
it, so we call it involuntary. If a signal is
sent from the brain to the sinus node and
the sinus node does not send the signal,
the heart will not beat and the person will
die.
The heart speeds up or slows down auto-
matically in response to nerve signals
from the brain that tell it how hard the
body is being used. That is why people can
die of a heart attack if they suddenly work
much harder than normal. One of two
things can go wrong. The heart cannot
pump enough blood quickly and the body
is damaged or the heart muscle itself is
overworked
and stops.
Either thing
can cause us
to die. Nor-
mally the
heart speeds
up
and
slows down
between 70
and 80 beats per minute, each heartbeat
filling the four chambers inside with a
fresh round of blood.
There are two separate pumps on each
side of the heart, which are divided by a
wall of muscle called the septum. The up-
per chamber on each side is called the
atrium
. This is connected by a sealing
valve to the larger, more powerful lower
chamber, or
ventricle
. The left ventricle
pumps most forcefully, which is why a
person's heartbeat is felt more on the left
side of the chest.
When the heart contracts (or beats in-
ward) the chambers become smaller, forc-
ing blood first out of the atria into the ven-
tricles, then from each ventricle into a
large blood vessel connected to the top of
the heart. These vessels are the two main
arteries (or straws as we said earlier). One
of them, the
pu lmona r y
artery, takes
blood to the
lungs where
it picks up
oxygen. The
other, the
aorta, trans-
ports freshly
oxygenated
blood (blood that is full of fresh oxygen) to
the rest of the body. The vessels that bring
blood to the heart are the veins. The two
main veins that connect to the heart are
called the vena and cava.
Since the heart is at the center of the blood
delivery system, it is also central to life.
Blood takes oxygen from the lungs to the
other organs and tissues and removes car-
bon dioxide from the lungs, where the gas
is breathed out. Blood also shares nourish-
ment (food) from the digestive system and
other parts of the body. Likewise our im-
mune system cells (these are cells that
attack and kill anything that is poisonous
to our body) travel in the bloodstream,
looking for infection. Blood also takes the
body's waste products to the kidneys and
liver to be sorted out and trashed.
Heart disease has gone up over the last
century, due largely to changes in diet and
lifestyle. It has become the leading cause
of death for both men and women in the
United States, claiming almost 700,000
lives a year, or 29 percent of the annual
total. Worldwide, 7.2 million people die
from heart disease every year.
While our physical heart is important, our
spiritual “heart” is even more important.
Romans 10:9-10 says:
“That if thou shalt
confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and
shalt believe in thine heart that God hath
raised him from the dead, thou shalt be
saved. For with the heart man believeth
unto righteousness; and with the mouth
confession is made unto salvation.”
Just as we know our physical “heart” is
beating by the fact we are alive, we can
know our spiritual “heart” is alive by trust-
ing in God’s Word.
Robert McCallum
Savannah OH, (419) 962-1515
Fearfully and Wonderfully Made—The Heart
—Written by Robert McCallum
Pennsylvania Deitsh Testament
If you would like to obtain a New
Testament wi th
Psalms and Prov-
erbs in Pennsyl-
vania Deitsh,
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postpaid from the
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You do not need to send money ahead of time;
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able.
In making this translation, the committee’s
purpose was two-fold: 1) to adhere as closely
as possible to the Textus Receptus Greek text,
which is closely associated with Luther’s
(German) and the Authorized (English) version,
the two versions most commonly in use by the
Amish, and 2) to make the translation in fluent
everyday Pennsylvania Deitsh as it is spoken in
the home.
The translation procedures and principles used
in this translation are basically those employed
by the Wycliffe Bible Translators, and the exe-
gesis closely follows their series of in-house
“Exegetical Helps”. The final manuscript was
checked for exegetical accuracy by New Testa-
ment Greek specialists from the Translation
Department of the Wycliffe Bible Translators.