We each are created as a one of a kind miracle, so unique that each person can be identified from any other by both finger prints and DNA. Man clones and duplicates. God creates and originates. Each person is given gifts and talents that are to benefit those around them, even when they, or the people around them, can’t recognize the gifts and talents.

My high school students constantly fought to be like one another. Their desire to fit in was so strong that they would deny their individuality to fit with their peers. I assigned a short story task with complications which would allow me to work on their logical story telling and thinking. I did the assignment for years. I’m sure over 1,500 students were given the challenge. There were many similarities, but no duplicates. Students couldn’t produce identity sameness, no matter how hard they tried. Uniqueness is a God given gift that we often overlook.

Consider a tapestry metaphor. Each individual strand is unique. Each strand might know the colors of the strands around it, but each is unable to see the entirety of the tapestry or what part of the tapestry image it is helping to create. There is a greater plan than can be accomplished by a single strand or even many strands. The individual strand is important to the whole of the tapestry, and the whole of the tapestry provides the value of the individual strand. Take an individual strand out of a complete tapestry and the entire form is diminished.

God has a plan that involves every person on this planet. We tear a strand out of the tapestry every time we rule someone out as lacking value or being insignificant in any way. It is important to consider the bigger plan and to recognize that we have a limited view of how the plan is progressing. God knows and is working on each soul on this earth. Treating others as important to God is a different perspective than seeing others based on how important they are to me. Like the class assignment, my perspective gives God a chance to see how clearly I’m thinking.