By Sister Mary Scholastica, O.C.D.
What makes someone special? Do you see yourself as a special person? Would you look at your parents and siblings and think they are special people? Your neighbors down the street? Your friends from school, your co-workers? The person in the car next to yours? The cashier at the grocery store? Who is special? Do you even notice the people you walk by every day or are they just a blur as you hurry on to do whatever important thing is next on your radar?
Are we all just ordinary people living ordinary lives moving through the daily grind the best we can?
Sometimes I think we get locked into this just because it takes a lot to step back and to remove the lens through which we see life on a day-to-day basis. It’s safer, easier, quieter. It’s also a sure-fire way to miss out on a lot of what makes life truly special – the people.
I never honestly thought of myself as special. “Hey, I’m special, did you notice?” It sounds odd, it almost makes you laugh! Who would admit that? But it’s true.
The reality is, I am special, and so are you and so is everyone else whose paths you will cross within a given day. Don’t ever fool yourself into thinking that you know another person so well, that you assume they are just “ordinary people”. There’s no such thing as an ordinary person. There is no other person like you or me in this world. Even down to our fingerprints and DNA, there are no two people exactly alike. Let’s take it a little further.
God also created us because He knew that there would be no one else who could love Him in the way I would. Same goes for you, same goes for your neighbor. The uniqueness of each person, their gifts, their personalities, their joys and sorrows, their contributions to this world, their life experiences, there are no two people alike. It’s extraordinary! This is our daily life we’re talking about. The seemingly ordinary is filled with the extraordinary if you have but eyes to see. It’s special.
