It was 1974, and I was a student in Alpena Community College’s nursing program, with every spare hour spent studying.

I was completely immersed in the complexities of the human body and the incredible way it works. Memorizing the names of the bones and internal organs and learning the processes of the digestive and cardiovascular systems had put me into information overload — but, beyond that, I was captivated by the obvious perfection of our body’s design.

I was uncovering fascinating and mind-boggling medical and scientific facts, such as:

Our brain and spinal cord are our body’s control center and enable us to receive vast amounts of information from the physical world around us. From that center, a network of nerves connects to every part of our body, continually sending out electrical impulses that control every facet of our body’s function. It is reported that our brain contains over 86 billion nerve cells, with 100 trillion connections — more than the number of stars in the Milky Way.

With each beat, our heart pumps blood through thousands of miles of vessels, carrying nutrients and oxygen to every body part. An adult heart pumps approximately 1.5 gallons every minute and, by the day’s end, has pumped enough blood to fill over 40 50-gallon barrels, with our blood traveling about 12,000 miles.

Our eye can distinguish between approximately 10 million different colors and contains the fastest muscles in our body. Those incredible muscles can contract in under one one-hundredth of a second as they cause our eyelids to blink.

If we were able to uncoil our body’s DNA, it is estimated that it would stretch about 10 billion miles, the approximate distance from Earth to Pluto and back. From the moment of conception, our unique DNA guides every stage and unfolding detail of our development — from the color of our eyes and hair to our personality traits. No one else has the exact same chromosomes we have.

One of my assignments was to follow a couple through their pregnancy by attending prenatal classes with them and being present at the birth. Though we had not previously met, Marsha and Joe graciously invited me to join them on their journey, and so began a long-time friendship.

I was on clinical rotation at the hospital when I received a call that Marsha had been admitted. In a flurry of excitement, I alerted my instructor and headed to the obstetrics department. I was about to witness my first birth.

The labor progressed slowly, as most labors do, with the contractions gradually increasing in intensity and becoming more frequent. Suddenly, birth was imminent — Marsha was wheeled into the delivery room and Joe was seated by her head. Dr. Tom Cook positioned me just behind his shoulder, allowing me the privilege of watching their first-born emerge into this world.

Laying the baby on her mother, he clamped and cut the umbilical cord and all blood flow from the placenta was stopped, signaling their newly born daughter’s circulatory system to begin operating separately from her mother. As the tiny human being took her first breath and uttered her first cry, she began a new phase of her life. What a miracle!

The information I had studied had become reality — I was in absolute wonder over a baby’s development and the entire birth process.

Psalm 139:13-16 expresses this well: “You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank You for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous–how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born.”

Our body is a wonderful machine. Its basic chemicals can be found in the dust of the earth, but those elements could only be arranged into such a complex and intricate system by our Creator’s wisdom and skillful craftsmanship.

God’s words as He created Adam and Eve are recorded in Genesis 1:26-27: “Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness … So, God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him, male and female created He them.”

We are indeed His masterpieces and image bearers — each one has purpose and destiny wrapped up within, just like the precious baby I watched come into this world.

In Jeremiah 29:11, God declares: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to ME and I will listen to you. And you will seek ME and find ME when you search for Me with all your heart.”

Michelle Smith serves alongside her husband, Gary, as part of the leadership team of New Life Christian Fellowship. She founded Purely Women Ministries with the purpose of helping women of all ages discover their true identity as women of God. A fifth generation Alpena native, she counts it a privilege to live in northern Michigan and enjoys flower gardening, canoeing, rustic camping and all things outdoors. She can be reached at church@newlifealpena.org.