Twenty-eight thousand pounds at birth! That's what Dr. Bernard Nathanson estimates we would weigh if we continued to grow throughout gestation at the rate we grow in the first two weeks of life. That's how steep the trajectory of cell division is.

Add to this biological tumult the unimaginably intricate and precise processes of organization that take place during this time, and the picture is breathtaking. Everything from the ability to hit a baseball to the swirl of cowlicks to the sound of a person's laugh are fixed into place. In magnitude, the change is comparable to a tsunami; in complexity, to the transformation of winter into spring. The first two weeks of life may be the most important.

But the real glory and mystery of it all is that it takes place on a scale that is microscopic. The grandest, most awesome stage of human life is, for all practical purposes, invisible.

How like God. He likes small things. Resisting the proud and giving grace to the humble, he can ...