We think of blood as red. Red with hemoglobin, red with the iron-rich buses that load oxygen in the gills and carry it faithfully to every waiting cell. That color, that transport, is so much a part of our picture of life that it seems unimaginable without it.

But in the frozen seas around Antarctica swims a creature whose blood doesn’t just run cold — it runs clear. The icefish has no hemoglobin, so no buses to transport the oxygen. Instead, oxygen drifts into the plasma, a molecule here, a molecule there, flowing in the traffic itself.

Fragile? It looks that way. But Jehovah designed the icefish with many wonders suited for its frozen world. One of those wonders is its clear blood. Cold water cradles more oxygen than warm, and the fish is tuned to that gift. Its heart is large, its vessels wide, its blood volume fourfold what other fish can manage. Its bones are lighter, its muscles dense with mitochondria, each one wringing power out of every molecule. And all of it flows on, clear and thin — a living system where red is unnecessary.

Icefish grow long — two, sometimes nearly three feet. They wait on the seafloor, feeding on krill and smaller fish, sudden in their strike, patient in their hunger. Entire valleys of the ocean are filled with their nests, millions upon millions, testimony that Jehovah’s design does not fail.

And what of us? Sometimes we wonder about the cold ahead. What if I am cut off from meetings? From publications? From the faithful voice that now guides me? What if persecution strips away what I think I need? The thought can chill us — make us feel incomplete — like a body without its red blood, like passengers left with no buses.

Yet Jehovah’s answer is steady. To Paul, weighed down by a thorn in the flesh, He said: “My power is being made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9, NWT). It was not the removal of weakness, but the filling of the gap that kept Paul going.

So too with us. Jehovah does not leave His people gasping. When the hour comes, He supplies what is needed. The icefish, coursing with clear blood through silent waters, is proof in flesh of that principle: life does not depend on what we think is essential, but on the provision Jehovah gives at just the right time. Even when the buses vanish, the passengers still move forward — carried not by their own strength, but by the God who never abandons them.