Another Quote... From an Embryo

True photo of an in-womb child.

_The below text is taken from Richard Wurmbrand's Tortured for Christ.  For those of you who have not yet read this book, please avail yourselves to its contents here.

I've been thinking about this a lot recently.  It's probably one of the most thought-provoking moments in his memoir (and he's got a LOT of those!).  Ever since first reading it (several months ago), I've been unable to parray it from my mind for very long.  It swooped in and enveloped my conscious again yesterday, when a friend asked me how I could possibly be sure there was an afterlife. 

"Suppose that we could speak with an embryo in his mother's womb and that you would tell him that the embryonic life is only a short one after which follows a real, long life. What would the embryo answer? He would say just what you atheists answer to us, when we speak to you about paradise and hell. He would say that the life in the mother's womb is the only one and that everything else is religious foolishness. But if the embryo could think, he would say to himself, ‘Here arms grow on me. I do not need them. I cannot even stretch them. Why do they grow? Perhaps they grow for a future stage of my existence, in which I will have to work with them. Legs grow, but I have to keep them bent toward my chest. Why do they grow? Probably life in a large world follows, where I will have to walk. Eyes grow, although I am surrounded by perfect darkness and don't need them. Why do I have eyes? Probably a world with light and colors will follow.'

"So, if the embryo would reflect on his own development, he would know about a life outside of his mother's womb, without having seen it. It is the same with us. As long as we are young, we have vigor, but no mind to use it properly. When, with the years, we have grown in knowledge and wisdom, the hearse waits to take us to the grave. Why was it necessary to grow in a knowledge and wisdom that we can use no more? Why do arms, legs, and eyes grow on an embryo? It is for what follows. So it is with us here. We grow here in experience, knowledge, and wisdom for what follows. We are prepared to serve on a higher level that follows death."

This truly is a beautiful insight... an inspired insight.  May it touch you as it has touched me. 

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