The Cells That Stay

In 1996, scientist Diana Bianchi at Tufts University made a remarkable discovery. During pregnancy, fetal cells cross the placenta and embed themselves in the mother's body — in her lungs, her liver, her heart, even her brain. These cells remain for decades after the child is born. Researchers have found them in women twenty-seven years after giving birth. The phenomenon is called microchimerism, and it means that long after delivery, a mother literally carries her child within her.

But the exchange goes both ways. The mother's cells also cross into the baby and persist there, sometimes for a lifetime. Mother and child become part of one another at the cellular level, woven together in ways neither can undo.

When the Apostle John writes that God is love and that whoever abides in love abides in God and God in them, he is describing something microchimerism only hints at. The love of the Almighty is not a sentiment He feels from a distance. It is an indwelling presence. When we receive His love, something of Him takes up permanent residence in us, and something of us is held permanently in Him.

You cannot un-love your children. The proof is written in your very cells. How much more does the God who knit you together carry you within His heart — not for twenty-seven years, but for eternity.