All of the snow blanketing the East Coast from Winter Storm Jonas coincided with the anniversary of Roe v. Wade and Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. That prompted me to do some thinking about the correlation between snow flakes and humans. Some quick online research informed me that according to Jon Nelson at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan–a physicist who has spent a decade and a half studying snow–the number of cubic feet of snow that falls on the earth each year is about one million billion, or a one followed by fifteen zeros. So how many snowflakes is that? Well, again according to Nelson, one cubic foot of snow contains about one billion snow crystals (or what most of us commonly call snow flakes), meaning that in one year one quadrillion–a one followed by 24 zeros–snow flakes fall to earth.
What does all of this have to do with humans? Well, like me, you have probably always heard that no two snow flakes are alike. Nelson suggests that may not be entirely true. He thinks that snow flakes (crystals) that fall to the earth before they fully develop might be alike, actually. Of course, neither he nor anyone else will ever be able to prove that. Here is what Nelson had to say in an article posted on Live Science in 2007:
How likely is it that two snowflakes are alike? Very likely if we define alike to mean that we would have trouble distinguishing them under a microscope and if we include the crystals that hardly develop beyond the prism stage—that is, the smallest snow crystals. Good luck finding them though. Even if there were only a million crystals and you could compare each possible pair once per second—that is, very fast—then to compare them all would take you about a hundred thousand years.
So, maybe you would rather say “no two snow flakes are alike as far as we know” but I am content to leave off the qualifier. And if you believe that God is in control of the entire universe and the creator of every snow flake, as I do, then this is even more astounding. Job 38 references the storehouses of snow and hail. I find it fascinating to contemplate massive warehouses somewhere in heaven, filled with billions and quadrillions of snowflakes! Anyway, I got off track. What does this have to do with humans?
Well, not only do I believe that God makes each snowflake, I believe He makes each human being. Psalm 139:14 tells us that each human being is “fearfully and wonderfully made.” The previous verse says, “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.” I love that word picture, because knitting is such a delicate craft, requiring attention to detail. It should encourage each of us to consider that God put each human together exactly as He saw fit, according to His specific desires and plans for each person. The Message presents Psalm 139:14 like this: “you know exactly how I was made, bit by bit.”
According to Professor Nelson it would be an impossibility to compare every snowflake that falls to the earth in one year. I suspect it would also be impossible to compare–or even to count–every hair on the heads of the earth’s six billion inhabitants, yet Luke 12:7 tells us that the very hairs of every head are numbered–meaning that God knows how many hairs there are on each and every head. The Voice renders that verse to include the statement “God knows you in every detail.” That is both comforting and intimidating but it means one thing for certain; if God cares enough to knit each human together and to be familiar with each detail of each person, down to the number of hairs on each head, then each human being has inherent worth.
In a recent column Mindy Belz wrote the following:
What role do I–one of 6 billion–have in the world? Infinitely the same value as all others, and theirs infinitely of more value to me when I know they matter infinitely to God. The fact that life is valued before it has done anything of value is groundbreaking enough to remake whole political systems–if it means the life of a plumber, poet, or president can be conducted for God’s glory. All men everywhere, leveled. Your one blank slate, while it is yet blank, created equal–preeminently so–to all others. It is earthshaking enough to unravel the world’s looming human catastrophes–if a life has infinite value to God.
So, next time you look at the snow outside your window–whether that is today or months from now, whether you like the snow or you wish it would just go away–let it be a reminder to you that God makes each snowflake unique, He makes each human being unique, and each and every human being was made by design, exactly the way God wanted him or her to be. God, as it has so often been said, makes no mistakes. And life beings at conception. The science is actually unmistakably clear and so is the Bible. Regardless of the arrogant and selfish attitudes of those like Lindy West–who announced last year, “It is a fact without caveat that a fetus is not a person. I own my body and I decide what I allow to grow in it.”–no one has the right to arbitrarily end the life of another. God created that life, He designed it perfectly, exactly the way He wanted it. God owns that body, not Lindy West or anyone else, and we must never forget that we are not God. None of us.
THINKING OUT LOUD 