Marriage as Chemistry.

I am back in school, after a 37-year hiatus. This is Week Two. I'm behind-er than I want to be with my homework (READING), but if I look at it objectively, I think I'm doing Just. Fine.

I was reading in my Anatomy and Physiology book about the chemistry of the human body, and came across something I have learned several times in my life (high school chem, college chem, homeschool chem, you get the picture...) but which always fills me with awe at the incredible Creator God that we serve.

God can take a silvery-white metal (sodium) and bond it with a poisonous green gas (chlorine) to make a white, crystalline substance that has healing properties, preserves food, and makes food taste better, as well.

A. Mazing.

Two completely unrelated things, and one of them poisonous to humans, to boot. (tho' does pretty well at bleaching your white things...) He designed their outer valent shells (think back, your chemistry is still in your brain somewhere!) to "desire" to have the full allotment of eight electrons. Sodium has one electron in its outer shell; chlorine has seven. Sounds like a "match made in heaven," right?

Exactly.

"Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." --Gen. 2:24a

When sodium and chloride get together, that's called bonding (ionic bonding, to be specific). There's another type of chemical bonding called covalent bonding. This is where the two elements share electrons. An example of this is two hydrogens sharing with one oxygen to make water. Since we are 60% water ourselves, we have a lot of covalent bonding going on already. But that "two become one" thing--always difficult to grasp, though with a marriage of almost 36 years (so far), I can "apprehend" it. God takes two different things, putting them together to make something strong and beautiful. Somewhat different from the original parts (tho' a marriage is not as drastic a change as sodium chloride, right?) but better, stronger, and with a shared purpose.

"Ye are the salt of the earth." --Matt. 5:13. Salt has so many beautiful properties. It is healing. It preserves things. It tastes good! My pastor says that we should work to make our marriages the very best they can be, because Christian Marriage is the best picture God has, to show Himself to the world. So I can say the same thing about marriage: it is healing. It preserves things. It tastes good!

I suspect that marriage is an example of covalent bonding--the "shared electron" thing. My textbook says that "the shared electrons orbit and "belong to" the whole molecule, ensuring the stability of each atom." Isn't that beautiful?

Whew. I'm glad we're not ionic bonding. Then one of us would have to be the "silvery white metal," and the other would have to be the "poisonous green gas." And I'd be a little afraid to ask God which one I am...

Textbook quote taken from Human Anatomy and Physiology, Marieb and Hoehn, ninth ed., p. 34.