Seeing an Ear

You should have seen it. Perfect. Beautiful. Ridges were just right. Properly proportioned. Warm to the touch. Wiggle-able. Even a little fuzz.

An amazing ear.

The five-day old ear of our latest granddaughter had me mesmerized as I held her. There was a lot to behold, but it was the ear that caught my eye. The ear wasn’t developing. It was fully developed. Nothing more would be or needed to be added. It was a complete ear. At five days old! Sure, it would grow with the rest of her overtime, but it was already complete. A fully formed human ear.

It looked just like yours and mine, except for where it was different. Do you think ears are like fingerprints? Probably.

It was not dissimilar to the ears of other creatures. Not as twitchy as deer’s ear. Not as floppy as a dog’s might be.

But an ear. You’d make no mistake about it. An ear is an ear, and at five days old she had one right there on the side of her head as it ought to be.

How was it that she had come to have that ear?

Yes, I know that part of it.

But I don’t really know. I mean, how does it happen?

Plenty of books describe the development of the human body. Information is stunningly advanced regarding the human genome, genetics, DNA, RNA, and the like. Scientists know so much that they can even grow “near” ears. 

Even with all that knowledge, this was still something: that baby’s ear. Not something else. Something just as you would expect it to be. Look at it: something! At five days mind you. Complete. Right off the bat.

And it fit in with all the rest of her. That was just the ear.

That ear helped me see the hand of God. That’s the only way to explain it. That is the only way she came to have that amazing ear. God put it right there.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was knit together in the depths of the earth. Psalm 139:13-15

Yes, God did it. He put that ear there. That ear, as the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 1, revealed the eternal power and divine nature of God. Through that baby’s little five-day old ear the power and nature of God was displayed.

Knit is probably the best word to describe it all. Maybe in Latin it would sound more scientific, but it would be no less precise. God knit by grand-daughter together ear and all, with DNA and RNA and nutrition and warmth and nine months and, as I suppose C.S. Lewis would say, a fair amount of “magic”.

Yes, God knit that ear and put it right there where it was.

Do you sometimes have trouble believing in God and the love he has for us in Jesus? Don’t we all?

That’s why it is important to read the Bible, go to church, and spend time in prayer. That’s why it’s important to read books and talk with other believers. That’s why it’s important to plumb the depths of science and to gaze upon the beauty of a sunset.

And if you really have trouble, sit and contemplate the ear of a five-day old baby.