Currently Reading Early Christian Doctrines By J. N. D. Kelly see related

The Psalmist praised the Lord that he was fearfully and wonderfully made.  Our God is a creative genius.  Let me illustrate it for you. There is not 1 part of your body that you can see that was there 10 years ago.  All the cells in your body have been replaced by new cells through the process of mitosis – cell reproduction (except for nerve cells and brain cells, which are never replaced)  That is true of all of us, so that if your wife says “your not the man I married 10 years ago..” You can say… “You’re right!”  Our bodies replace cells a bit slower as we age, especially in our bones, but they continue to replace themselves.

The question that might come to your mind is, why do the new cells look exactly like the old ones?  Why don’t my eyes change color? Why don’t I grow 10 inches with the new cells? Why the same nose, same facial features, same fingerprints, etc.?

The answer is DNA, Deoxyribonucleic Acid. This is a polymer molecule (a large molecule made up of smaller molecules) located in each cell nucleus that determines its makeup.  Within every DNA molecule is over one hundred thousand genes.  DNA is estimated to contain instructions that, if written out, would fill 1 thousand books of 600 pages each.  A muscle cell might operate according to instructions from volume 27 and a kidney cell according to instructions from volume 789, but each cell has the whole DNA.  The RNA within each cell tells it what part of the DNA instructions that each individual cell should operate according to!  Every cell of every person has their personal DNA, and everyone’s is completely different.  If you have ever watched an episode of CSI, you already know this; it is called our genetic finger print.

DNA looks like a long spiral staircase, millions of turns long. How large and long are those DNA? If you took the DNA out of every cell of your body and put them together, they are so compact that they wouldn’t be as big as an ice cube, yet if they are unwound, they would stretch from here to the sun and back…….OVER 400 TIMES!   Isn’t that incredible?  When you look in the mirror today, pause and take the time to praise the God who created you, and remember that you are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made.