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Any chemistry nerds out there?  Probably not, but there is one here. 

This is me in my husband’s glasses, because I don’t have any for myself and we both have the same blind-as-a-bat prescription, on a long day of residency work last year.

Anyways, the good news is you don’t have to be a chemistry nerd to read this blog.  But I am, and there is one particular topic in chemistry that has held my fascination for many years…the HYDROGEN  BOND!

Ok, I will briefly explain for those who may not know, just what hydrogen bonds are, and why they are so fascinating.

First of all, we all can remember from way back in elementary school when we learned about atoms.

Atoms are what stuff is made of.  The basic unit of everything.  You can find all the different type of atoms that make up the universe on the Periodic Table.  I heard in a movie the other day a little girl telling her dad about atoms.  She said, “Dad, did you know that I am made of the same things that make up this chair!”  Crazy.. huh?! 

Atoms are made up of positive (protons found in the nucleus) and negative charges (electrons).   Turns out that the physical universe’s attempt to balance out positive and negative charges is basically the reason why everything is the way it is.

Back to hydrogen bonds.  Hydrogen bonds form when hydrogen is attracted to a molecule (made up of 2 or more atoms) that has a partial negative charge.  Take water for example…

Most of us know that water is made of 2 hydrogen atoms and 1 oxygen atom (H20).  Sorry, I have no idea how to make a subscript in a blog post.  The oxygen is the atom with 8 protons and 8 electrons.  So, after oxygen covalently bonds (shares electrons) with the 2 hydrogen atoms to form water, 4 electrons are left over, unbonded.  This draws a partial negative charge towards the unbonded electrons, and a partial positive charge toward the 2 hydrogens.  Here we have a classic DIPOLE MOMENT.  Dipole means that the molecule has 2 different areas with 2 different types of charges.

I promise I am about done with the chemistry!  Ok, so what is so great about a dipole moment?  Well, when molecules of water get close to other molecules of water, the partial negative charge from the unbonded electrons on the first molecule matches up with the partial positive charge on the hydrogen end of the second molecule.  And BEHOLD…a hydrogen bond is formed!

Imagine the gray dotted lines as the hydrogen bonds.  These bond are not strong because they are only between partial charges, but they are the forces that make water…well…water!  The reason water forms a drop, the reason things float, and the reason all the water in the world doesn’t just evaporate into the air! 

One more amazing use of hydrogen bonds, and then I am done!  Did you know that hydrogen bonds hold DNA together? 

Yep!  Those are hydrogen bonds between the base pairs.

DNA codes for who we are.  What we look like.  How our body functions.  So hydrogen bonds are very important, on a personal level. 

Hydrogen bonds, to me, reflect a small glimpse into the mind of God.  A complex, creative, and fascinating God.  A God that holds things together.

“And he [Christ] is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” -Colossians 1:17.

This is one of my favorite verses.  Many of us think us Christ as our the saver of our souls or some positive influence from Heaven that supplies all of our needs and wants.  But to think of Christ as the person that holds creation together – holds water and DNA together, is another thing!  To realize that every moment of every day he is sustaining creation. If he were to quit for a split second, there would be total chaos!    And, I think anyways, that’s it’s very exciting that he chooses to do so, in part, by hydrogen bonds!