The Miracle of Life?

According to Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, a miracle is 'an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs'. Supernaturally speaking, a miracle is usually something that does not normally occur. Jesus' Resurrection on the third day, way back in 33AD was a miracle, as was John's significant rising from the grave. That the Virgin Mary conceived without knowing a man was a miracle, as was the conception of John the Baptizer & those like him ( Elijah ). Miracles are supernatural occurrences, yes, but just because they occur every day & through natural means doesn't make them any less miraculous!

You may have heard certain people speak of 'the miracle of birth'; well, now apparently, certain others, for some reason, are denying the miraculous, maybe because it IS an everyday occurrence & occurs through natural means! To my Christian brethren, I would say; 'look to the Scriptures'. How many times do we read about a woman who's womb God had shut up? ( Okay, so it's not that many! ) But when the woman had prayed to God, her womb was opened & she was able to conceive. Sure, there's a natural explanation to many of the miracles we read of in Scripture, but even though the Science of Biology has taken amazing leaps since the Days of Scripture, we can still see, as I would say to any other doubters, that the Spark of Life HAS to originate from SOMEWHERE!

The Theory of Evolution, with its insistence that we all came from a single-celled organism, climbing out of the primeval ooze & eventually sprouting limbs & walking upright, first as monkeys, but after several different stages, the human beings we witness today, is easily debunked! You may believe, as I do, in a form of evolution, but it would be more of a natural progression, an adaptation, if you will. Now, did the Creator begin with a lump of clay, as John Milton postulated ( from Scripture ) & numerous songwriters have wondered, or a single-celled organism? It's possible, although the majority of Christians would probably insist that, as Scripture seems to say, the first human beings had no belly buttons, in other words, the Creator God said the Word & POOF, there they were in all their naked glory & with the appearance of age ( 30 years )!

The majority of Christians out there would, in order to stay true to Scripture, would vehemently insist that, as our first parents were formed from the dust of the earth & then given the Breath of Life, so Adam & Eve had no parents of their own! Does it really matter in the grand scheme of things whether or not they had belly-buttons, or if they did, they were created with them?! Were they actually not technically the first humans, just our first spiritual ( covenant ) parents? It DOES seem to make more sense, with what we now know through the advances of Science, to look at it that way! While it IS possible that the Creator God simply gathered up a handful of wet dirt & breathed Life into it, but I'm pretty sure even the most simple among us, if we're honest with ourselves, know that probably ain't the way it happened!

Birth, from conception till the new child exits the womb, IS a miracle! From what we know of the whole process, which includes thousands maybe millions of sperm rushing toward the ovaries, ready to fertilize the egg or eggs that are there, the fact that only one of these actually penetrates the egg, beginning the process of the formation of a brand new human being should give us a clue. Who decides which one of those little fellas lives & which ones die? Is it really that simple? Does a man just randomly spew millions of tiny sperm inside a woman, trusting to chance that one among that ridiculous number may just happen to penetrate the sac? No, he knows from our study of Science that, at a certain time of the month, it is way more probable than at others that one of these seeds will find its mark & produce the desired result!

While one may certainly presume to speak of stages of human development, as the child grows & adapts to his or her surroundings, we may easily see from the same study of Science that human beings, though we share an amazing bit of our structure with them, did not evolve from monkeys! The question might simply be asked, 'why are there old monkeys?' Like the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg, it gets pretty ridiculous rather fast! Were Adam & Eve simply made from a lump of clay as a child fashions an elephant or a giraffe from Play-dough? I'll let my readers play with that one! ( Pun intended! )

To say that the birth of a child is NOT a miracle is beyond ridiculous; if one knows ANYTHING about the intricacies of what needs to happen, down to the minutes detail & I'm talking atomic here, about conception all the way through till the birth, that one cannot honestly say that it's not a miracle! Humans, in their finite wisdom, have struggled & still struggle, for ages to find a natural explanation for everything. To a great degree, they have succeeded; there is a natural explanation for MOST everything that occurs! This is not to say, however, that just because something happens THROUGH natural means that it is not a miracle, nor is this to say that nothing supernatural ever happens anymore. I'll leave my readers to judge that for themselves, but as for me & my house, we believe in the miraculous!

Charles Haddon Shank