Miracles of life and development

 

It's impossible to hold a tiny infant in your arms, especially one personally connected to you, and not be filled with wonder and amazement.

You can see the miracles looking backward and looking forward.

A human life starts with microscopic cells. Male and female unite to form a zygote, which rapidly begins to split and evolve into an embryo. Somehow the full dynamic of the process is embedded inside those tiny cells. With very few anomalies, the development proceeds, time after time, step by step, week by week, as the embryo grows inside its host mother. Portions of the tissue change and specialize; somehow the growth continues, on schedule, month after month, in that protected environment. Then the point is reached where the growth can't continue in that space, and the additional miracle of birth occurs - the baby joins our world. How can that astonishingly rapid development, in that closed environment, lead from tiny cells to a self-contained, breathing, moving, functioning, indescribably complex living being? It's an incomparable miracle.

And then holding that tiny person in your arms, you envision another miracle looking forward. This helpless, wholly-dependent being, if cared for and nurtured in the coming years (as she will be), will continue to develop and learn, to grow physically and intellectually. Looking down the years, in the mind's eye you can almost see the bright and shining life to come, the opportunities, the accomplishments. Within that little body is the capability to walk and run, to speak and sing, to create and to love. What will her personality be like? What will her interests and gifts be? Only time will tell as the miracle continues to unfold.

I #GiveThanks for the infinite potential within a microscopic cell, and the inconcievable procession of miracles that accompanies every life. Each and every one of us is an unfolding miracle. The best is yet to some.