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"I have been remarkably and wonderfully made."
(Psalm 139:14 HCSB)

No matter how educated we are about the human body, our understanding only scratches the surface of the wonders within its frame. All the volumes of books and journals written do not contain the entire story of who we are or how we function. The complexity of humanity inspires great awe in its observers.

Contemplate some of these known facts about the "average" human:

Skeleton The largest bone is the pelvis, or hip bone. In fact it is made of six bones joined firmly together. The longest bone is the 'femur', in the thigh. It makes up almost one quarter of the body's total height. The smallest bone is the 'stirrup', deep in the ear. It is hardly larger than a grain of rice. The outer ears and the end of the nose do not have bones inside them. Their inner supports are cartilage or "gristle", which is lighter and more flexible than bone. This is why the nose and ears can be bent. Your hand has 27 different bones in it! Your face has 14 bones. You have more than 270 moveable and semi-moveable joints in your body. Your joints are classified according to function, ranging from immovable to freely movable. The cartilage in your joints has no direct blood or nerve supply. That is one reason for the difficulty in healing cartilage injuries or degeneration. Your bones have their own inborn remodelers, the osteocytes. Your bones are not dry, as is often thought, but rather rich with blood supply. Several of your bones are responsible for blood production.		Muscles There are about 60 muscles in the face. Smiling is easier than frowning. It takes 20 muscles to smile and over 40 to frown. The longest muscle in the body is the sartorius. It courses from the outside of the hip, down and across to the inside of the knee. It rotates the thigh outwards and bends the knee. The smallest muscle in the body is the stapedius. Located deep in the ear, it is only 5mm long and thinner than cotton thread. It is involved in hearing. The biggest muscle in the body is the gluteus maximus. Located in the buttock, it pulls the leg backwards powerfully for walking running and climbing steps. Your tongue is a mass of muscles. A British scientist tried to count all the muscles of the tongue, but gave up when he got to 400,000! The job of muscles is to pull, not push. Muscles work in pairs. The busiest muscles in your body are your eye muscles. Scientists estimate that they may move more than 100,000 time per day!
Circulation The heart beats around 3 billion times in the average person's life. Your heart pumps abot 2.5 gallons of blood per minute. If you could loan your heart to pump donor blood into pint-sized bottles, it would fill so many bottles in 1 year that they would stretch from New York City to Cleveland, Ohio! About 2 million blood cells die in the your body every second, and the same number are born each second. Within a tiny droplet of blood, there are some 5 million red blood cells; 10,000 white blood cells; and 300,000 platelets. 60,000 of these cells could fit on the head of a pin! It takes about 1 minute for a red blood cell to circlulate through your whole body. Red blood cells make approximately 250,000 round trips of the body before returning to the bone marrow, where they were born, to die. Red blood cells may live for about 4 months circulating throughout your body, feeding the 60 trillion other body cells. If your red blood cells were put in a single row, it would extend around the world 4 times at the equator! Every second, between 2-3 million red blood cells are launched into your blood stream. Your veins and arteries would stretch about 12,000 miles if laid out in a line. Each of your kidneys contain 1 million functional units that filter your blood.		Nerves Your brain sends electrical messages to your muscles and organs at 270 miles per hour! Your brain makes up about 2% of your body weight, weighing a little more than 3 pounds. About 100 billion nerves make up your brain. Unlike other body cells, brain cells can not regenerate Once brain cells are damaged they are not replaced. The brain and spinal cord are surrounded and protected by cerebrospinal fluid. Your brain gets signals from 130 million light receptors; 100,000 hearing receptors; 3,000 taste buds; 30,000 heat spots; 250,000 cold spots; and 500,000 touch spots. You have 12 pairs of cranial nerves, 10 of which exit from the brain stem. The retina of your eye is like a tiny film in a camera. It's thinner than a tissue paper, and has 137 million nerve endings, which carry pictures to your brain. Your eyes make 10 million different color distinctions. The olfactory (smell) receptors in your nose line the uppermost portion of the nasal cavity. Those receptors, consisting of hair cells, are stimulated by the slightest odors but stop sensing even the strongest smells after a short time because they fatique. Reflexes occur automatically to protect your body without any brain involvement.  Most every function of your body is either directly or indirectly controlled and monitored by your nervous system. You have 31 pairs of spinal nerves that stretch out to different areas of your body.
Immunity Your skin secretes antibacterial substances. These substances explain why you don't wake up in the morning with a layer of mold growing on your skin--most bacteria and spores that land on the skin die quickly. Tears and mucus contain an enzyme (lysozyme) that breaks down the cell wall of many bacteria. Lymph nodes contain filtering tissue and a large number of lymph cells. Lymph is a clear fluid that bathes the body tissue and helps to aid the body's immune system. Lymph is transported through lymph vessels that bear some resemblance to your blood vessls. When fighting certain bacterial infections, the lymph nodes swell with bacteria and the cells fighting the bacteria, to the point where you can actually feel them. Swollen lymph nodes may therefore be a good indication that you have an infection of some sort. Your spleen, located just within the lower portion of your left ribcage, is about the same size of your fist. Despite its relatively small size, it performs some very big immune system functions. Some of your body's very important immune functions are performed by your digestive system. Your skin and mucous membranes are a key part of your immunity as they help to prevent the intrusion of many immune system invaders.		Digestion In 70 years, your stomach will produce about 60,000 quarts of digestive juices and will digest about 40 tons (80,000 pounds) of food. Adults eat about 1100 pounds of food per year. About 1.5 quarts of saliva are produced each day. In the mouth, food is either cooled or warmed to a more suitable temperature. We get two sets of teeth. Our 20 “baby" teeth are replaced starting at around 6-7 years of age with our 32 “adult" teeth. The esophagus is about 10 inches long. Muscles contract in waves to food down the move the esophagus. Because of that, food gets to a your stomach, even if you stand on your head. An adult’s stomach can hold over 1.5 quarts of material. Every day 3 gallons of digested food, liquids and digestive juices flow through the digestive system, but less than 1/4 pint of fluids are lost in feces. The adult's intestines stretch over 8 yards long. Digestion from mouth to anus takes about 72 hours. Food churning in the stomach may take 3-4 hours before it's emptied into duodenum of the small intestine. Food is dried and prepared for elimination in the large intestine. This process may take from 18 hours to 2 days.
Respiration Hairs in your nose help to clean the air you breathe as well as warming it At rest, an adult body takes in and breathes out over 1.5 gallons of air each minute. When physically exerting oneself, the volume of air increases to around 15 gallons per minute. A person at rest usually breathes 12-18 times per minute, and the breathing rate is faster in women and children than men. You lose half a quart of water daily through breathing. This is the water vapor you see when you breathe onto glass. Your right lung is slightly larger than the left. Your lungs contain half a billion tiny air sacs, with a surface area of 40-50 sq. mi. The highest recorded "sneeze speed" is about 103 miles per hour. That's about the same wind speeds observed during a tornado! The capillaries in your lungs would extend almost 1,000 miles if placed end to end.

All of these wonderful facts look strictly at your physical makeup and functions. They completely ignore the endless and wonderful worlds of your soul and spirit. When you really think about it, you are an amazing wonder!