Uniquely yours

“Here comes the snow, a language in which no word is ever repeated.”
William Matthews.
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There is no one else on the face of the earth quite like you.
 
Your DNA, your personality, gifts and talents make you as unique as a snowflake. Kenneth Libbrecht, Physics Professor at the California Institute of Technology, has microscopically photographed a myriad of snowflakes from different parts of the world and while he said some are similar, he has never found two exactly the same.
 
Unlike sleet and hail, snowflakes form inside the cloud.  The seed crystal itself forms on a tiny particle, like a speck of dust in the air, which serves as a base for ice growth. Water vapor molecules from cloud droplets condense and freeze on the surface of the seed crystal, and patterns emerge as these crystals grow.
 
It sounds to me very like the shaping of our lives. Take the seed of my DNA, gifts and talents, add the experiences of life; the ups and the downs, the skills I’ve learnt along the way and the relationships that have shaped my perspectives, beliefs and values and I realise why no one else will be exactly like me.
 
Even identical twins have different fingerprints. We are unique from start to finish.

Wilson A Bentley, a self-educated farmer from rural Vermont, began photographing snowflakes in 1885.

Wilson A Bentley

When I was a little girl I was terrified that I would grow up to be like my maternal grandmother. Born in Britain in the Victorian era, she was stern, severe, and gloomy in manner and appearance.  She believed that children should be seen and not heard. Sadly, she scared me.
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I grew up in very different times. I had been born with a different personality, to parents who came from different sides of the world and had been shaped by their own life journey … my father through life in the coalfields of Wales and my mother born and bred in suburban NSW.
​I was me.
 
There is a awesome sense of privilege and responsibility that comes from realising that there never was and never will be another person quite like you or me; that we each have something unique to offer the world in which we’ve been placed. 

I often feel inadequate; wish I had the confidence of so and so or that I was an extrovert like someone else and yet the person I am and the experiences I’ve had, fit me perfectly for the role God has for me.
 
Suddenly comparisons appear ludicrous.
 
What I have to offer the world can’t be compared to what you have to offer – both are unique and the world needs us both.
 
It needs people prepared to be their authentic self, willing to accept who they are, their strengths and their weaknesses and courageous enough to offer their uniqueness regardless of criticism or praise.  
 
People who can see in every other person, irrespective of race, gender, age, ability or intellect, the fingerprint of God. Able to accept that our differences are part of our uniqueness and we all have something to offer each other. 

 Celebrate your uniqueness, embrace it with passion and share it with love.