Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Spontaneous Combustion

Abby asked me the other day if I was a pyro. The answer is, um, maybe. Mainly I just like fire imagery.

A lot of the images I use involve sparks, matches, fires, etc...things that need help starting. Most chemical reactions are reliant on heat to begin. You need to turn up the Bunsen Burner, hot plate, etc., to get the job done. Think of cooking...what you put into the cake pan does not look like what comes out of the oven. At least it shouldn't. If it does, please step away from the baked goods and order take-out.

Some reactions give off heat after starting. You need heat from friction to start a match, but afterward, the burning gives off more heat than you put in.

Then there are the spontaneous reactions. Try putting baking soda into vinegar. I'll wait...

Now clean it up.

That didn't require any heat, did it? And it didn't give off much heat, if any, while exploding all over your room. So what happened?

Sometimes things just click. The basic nature of the baking soda and the acidic nature of the vinegar come together to make salts and hydrogen gas, resulting in an awesome display of bubbles.

I guess all that is to say, I'm happy at GC-4. It didn't require a lot of work from either end, but I have no doubt that God will do something incredible with this relationship. At times, it may not be as exciting as exploding household products, but it will be better in the end, because it will be God's.

"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2:10

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