We are Unique Miracles of God

Og Mandino’s Scroll Four is I am nature’s greatest miracle.  We are all nature’s greatest miracle.  Nothing in nature compares to the miracle of birth.  It’s an amazing event.  Psalm 139 tells us about how God shaped and molded us even before we were born.  God valued us even before we were able to do anything on our own.  He values us enough that from the very beginning He has a plan for our lives.

 ¹³ For you created my inmost being;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   your works are wonderful,
   I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
   when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
 ¹⁶ your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
   were written in your book
   before one of them came to be.

Each one of us is unique.  No two people are exactly alike.  New research is finding that even identical twins have a few differences.   Because God has a plan for us He gave us the necessary abilities and talents to live according to that plan.  Mandino wrote that we should recognize our unique strengths, talents and abilities and celebrate them.  Have you taken an assessment of your abilities and talents?  These abilities and talents are unique to you.  Understand them, embrace them and with a strong sense of purpose, go forward to a new life.  Obstacles may cross your path but look at them at opportunities to use your God given talents to the fullest.

Look at obstacles as opportunities?  Throughout my life I’ve had many obstacles that I have looked at as opportunities.  I think I crossed those obstacles well with God’s help.  When I was fifty, I went back to school and got my associates degree in paralegal studies. In my mind, I finally crossed that last obstacle that was the difference between having a job and having a career.  I was so sure that I had properly assessed my strengths, talents and abilities and celebrated them.  I burnt the candle at both ends and worked full time while going to school full time.  I kept up with my work and school work in order to have a 4.0 GPA until my last semester.  

During my last semester of school, things began to get harder than they had ever been.  I began to notice that my once nearly perfect memory was not so perfect anymore.  Physically it was beginning to get hard to walk from the car to the building at work and school.  Convinced that I was just tired after two years of work, study and very little sleep, I didn’t think much of it.  I was sure that once I was getting eight hours of sleep every night and going home after work instead of to school, everything would be back to “normal”.  I’m still waiting for things to be back to “normal”.  

I moved into my new role as a paralegal eager to learn as much as I could.  I even gave thought to law school.  Things did get a little better, for a while.  I graduated in May.  By November, things were beginning to fall apart. My memory was getting worse, not better.  I was making so many notes but then couldn’t remember that I had made notes.  It was difficult to get up and be at work on time no matter what time I went to bed.  My wonderful husband became concerned because I was going to bed earlier and earlier.  Finally, in March I could no longer grasp new concepts.  Not only was I not grasping them, I was forgetting even being taught the new tasks.  The fatigue was so bad that many a time I thought I was going to have to sit down on a curb and rest to make it from the car to the building.  The pain kept increasing to the point that I would throw up in the mornings.  Finally on May 1, I could do it no longer.  I came home never to return to the working world again.  I’m not sure how long it actually was but it seemed like I slept for most of the next three months.  Two years later, I still suffer the pain, the fatigue, the memory loss.  It is a part of my new life and will never go away. It's an obstacle that I'm not sure how to overcome.  I have no idea how to look at Fibromyalgia as an opportunity.

Is it possible to be unique with abilities and talents only to have those no longer be part of your life?  Is it possible that God has another plan for me with its own set of abilities and talents?  I’m not sure but it’s beginning to seem so.  Only through prayer, faith in God and patience will I know the answer to that question.