Why I Can Honestly Tell My Kids "You're Special"

When I was growing up and someone would tell me, "You're special!" I would always wonder what they meant by that.  I was never sure if this was a compliment or if it was a condolence prize to make me feel better when I didn't feel better than I did.  Sometimes people would say, "You are SO special!" or, "God made you special!"

The word 'special' began to mean nothing to me.  I thought about what it means to be special and realized that I figured since everyone in the world is someone God made, then telling everyone they're special means absolutely nothing.  Being special, I thought, should mean one is outstanding, better, set-apart from the rest.  I thought to be special I had to do or be something extraordinary - or aspire to some high ambition or demonstrate a quality that no-one else could possess.

In the end I just figured people who told me I was special were just being nice and didn't really know me that well, or just ignored my glaring faults if they weren't blind to them.

But I was wrong.

Here's a side note:  I like to read and study on a wide variety of topics.  One of my interests is biology - specifically human biology.  I love to learn and understand how our bodies work!  And in some of my observations I began to realize something I once thought of as false.  I began to understand that each human being, created in the image of God, is SPECIAL.

A female child is born with about 1 Million Eggs.  By puberty only half of them are still around.  Only 300-500 will ever develop into mature eggs to be released.  Of those, only however many children she conceives get to ever become a person.

And that doesn't even compare to the sperm - a whopping 60,000 are produced every minute!!  That is incredible!!

Of those millions upon millions of sperm, only a select few - carrying essential DNA will ever get to meet up with a mature egg to conceive a child.

And beyond that, conception is in itself miraculous.  Don't believe me?  The width of a fallopian tube is about like a human hair.  You were once small enough to fit inside a human hair.  It's amazing the sperm ever get there or that the egg ever gets squeezed through this passage to meet up with a sperm. Each and every human being is incredibly special.

God could have picked any one of those million sperm or any one of those million eggs your mother had.  And of all those potential DNA recipes, He chose to make a person - you - out of the exact DNA from your biological parents.  You are unique and special because though there are millions of people on the planet only a tiny percentage of the potential DNA mixes got to be made into YOU!!!

That is why I can honestly tell my children that they are 'special'.

They'd like to roll their eyes at me.  But they don't.  Because they know I'll launch into human biology 101 with them if they do.

So, sure, be a cynic and try to tell me that saying to someone 'You're special' is pointless.  (Because I was that cynic at one time!)  But I won't listen.  I'll just direct you to study human biology 'til you begin to 'get it.'


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