My fist-sized heart can pump over twenty gallons of blood through my liver every hour to remove the waste materials and impurities from my blood. During normal activity the heart beats about 4,200 times per hour. That's over one hundred thousand times a day, about three million times a month, or two and a half billion beats in a lifetime. There is no man-made material that can be flexed so frequently without breaking. During each of these normal beats, your heart pumps about two and a half ounces of life-sustaining blood. That's about six quarts a minute or two thousand gallons a day, which could fill four or five average-sized hot tubs or spas. During strenuous exercise, the heart can pump as much as thirty quarts a minute!
The heart must pump this enormous flow of blood through some sixty thousand miles of blood vessels, most of which are tiny capillaries with a diameter about thirty times smaller than a human hair. The heart pumps with such power that it may take less than a minute for your blood to circulate around your entire body. And yet, with no thought on your part, over one thousand times a day your heart sends each blood cell on this journey so that every cell in the body can receive nourishment and oxygen and have its waste materials carried away.
The Savior warned us that one of the major signs of the last days would be that '"all things shall be in commotion; and that men's hearts shall fail them" (D&C 88:91). I believe that this prophecy pertains not only to physical heart failure but also to spiritual heart attacks, which are far more common than the physical ones.
One of the most common reasons for death by heart failure is the denial of the person that anything is wrong and the resulting delay of examination and treatment--even after they become aware of their symptoms and warning signs. Rather than rush in for evaluation when a person experiences mild to severely crushing chest pains, many people ignore the seriousness of the warning signs and go on about life in denial, hoping they can get away with it.
And so it is with spiritual heart failure. We find ourselves actually considering breaking or compromising our vows and apathetic about our commitments and promises--alarming danger signs, yet we ignore them. Just as a person with a physically damaged heart loses energy and concern for life's pressures and duties, losing spiritual energy and concern should be a warning signal that things are not right with our hearts spiritually. When performance of our family and gospel duties becomes more painful to us than neglect, we are in serious danger of heart failure and possible spiritual death and should undertake an immediate evaluation of our values and priorities.
There are many problems that can develop in our physical heart and circulatory system, and each defect produces specific symptoms, such as shortness of breath, chest, shoulder and arm pains, poor circulation, lack of energy, and erratic heart rate. Doctors listen to our heartbeat, monitor blood pressure, and test our cholesterol to try to detect pending heart diseases.
We can recognize physical heart attacks by the sudden onset of crushing pains in the chest, which often radiate to the shoulder, arms, and jaw. Spiritual heart attacks, in which "men's hearts shall fail them" can be recognized by symptoms such as an urge to break our covenants, to make evil choices, or to hurt others as we strike out in anger, revenge, or an unwillingness to forgive.
By Steven A. Cramer
