Just the same as last week, I’m still studying and taking notes on Biology. Do you know how expansive the subject of Biology is? It covers Astronomy, Cells, Animal Kingdoms, Anatomy, Evolution, Plants. All of that is in this one subject. It’s a lot to cover!
Anyway, this week I had to make notes on the most dreaded topic in all of Biology… THE KREBS CYCLE! If you’ve ever been hurt by the Krebs Cycle, raise your hand.
The Krebs Cycle (also known as the Citric Acid Cycle), along with Glycolysis and the Electron Transport Chain, are how cells create energy for the cell to live and perform its activities. This set of events all take place in the mitochondria. This is how the mitochondria makes energy to send out to the cell. Yup, that’s right. The easiest thing to remember in biology: “The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.” is only true because of the hardest thing to remember in Biology:
Growing up, trying to memorize every little step of this cycle was a nightmare. There are a lot of big words, there are a lot of words that are very similar, and there are a lot of abbreviations. Memorizing each of the pieces was miserable, but understanding the concept wasn’t too difficult. We’ve all heard that sugar gives us energy; this is how. Glucose(sugar) goes into Glycolysis and through a number of chemical reactions. From this, 2 ATP and 2 Pyruvate are produced. Then the Krebs Cycle takes those 2 pyruvate and produces 2 more ATP. Then the Electron Transport Chain takes all of these extra electrons lost from the H+s, and ends up making 32 ATP. In total, this series of events makes about 36 ATP which store the energy to be used later.
All of this is how the cell is powered, how it has the energy to keep living and keep thriving. As I was banging my head re-learning all of this, my brain wanted to think about anything else and so it started thinking about how our churches get energy to survive. Specifically I was thinking about some local parishes who are dying out.
Lent is coming up in just a few weeks. This is a time of fasting and almsgiving. You don’t have much time left to decide how you’re going to celebrate that this year. We all understand the fasting. Since we were 5 years old and giving up chocolate for Lent, we’ve understood this concept, but almsgiving seems a bit more difficult for others. Most of the time this term is used in donating food or clothes to the poor, but what if we took it to mean a bit more? Almsgiving is a giving of a good or service to help others, so this Lent, what if we gave of our time and our energy to help revitalize our local parishes?
Asking to give of our time and our energy is a tough sell. We are all tired from long days/weeks of work and taking care of kids, homes, finances, etc. But that is what we are called to during Lent, to sacrifice. I encourage you to look into how you can give your time. There are organizations at your church that perform service. They could not only use your help with the service, but I bet they could use a fresh perspective, helping them see how they could better serve the church. I know for a fact that there are over-worked church employees who would love for you to volunteer to help out with tasks around the parish. This Lent, take the initiative and ask how you can help them.
If you’re already one of these church workers who feel like you alone are giving all of the energy to this church, keeping it running, first of all THANK YOU! Next, ask for help! Encourage others to volunteer for some of the things you need help completing. Others have servant hearts; you can be the one to help them find their place to serve the church.
There are so many good people in each of our local churches who want to see it thrive and want to give their energy to keep them alive. If that’s you, if you care about your church and are thankful for what it has given you, ask someone how you can help. Ask where they need your energy. If you’re already giving every bit of energy to the church, help others to know what you need. Let them serve the church alongside you during this upcoming time of Lent.
