It was my birthday this week. I like my birthday about as much as I like Christmas, which, for those of you who have started reading since January, is down into the negative numbers. For the vast majority of my life, it has been a reminder of all the ways I’m not good enough. And since it tends to ramp up my PTSD, I end up being sleep-deprived and panic-attacked while I’m trying to remind myself what’s true and what’s a lie.
But you know what? The odds of any one of us existing are astronomical. There’s a pretty awesome info graphic based on Dr. Ali Binazir’s calculations I would like to show you. Note: Obviously, you can quibble over his calculations but the principle is the same.
If that’s not enough to blow your mind, you can also consider the fact that each cell was lovingly orchestrated by God. Psalm 139:13-15 says, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 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.”
Chuck Missler talks about how God is the force signaling to our wee bodies when it’s time to start working on hands and feet, when it’s time to make the liver and the heart. The way babies develop in utero is fearful and wonderful! It doesn’t make sense but they go from one cell to a whole baby. It’s a miracle.
I keep a quote by Mel Robbins in my planner: “There will always be someone who can’t see your worth–don’t let it be you.” It’s hard when the people who matter to us can’t see our worth. And I think birthdays can be a big reminder of that to a lot of people, especially if anyone in your family holds that view. It’s like a once a year day to come along and poke a sore spot.
If your birthday is such a day for you, I’d like to tell you right now: you are a miracle. You are amazing. The odds against you existing as yourself right now are so slim that it is God’s hand that’s lovingly formed you, God’s hand that’s kept your parents together long enough to conceive you. And even if one (or both) of them can’t see your worth, it doesn’t matter. Yes, it sucks. Yes, it’s hard and painful. But it doesn’t change who you are. It doesn’t change that you are God’s miracle, created exactly the way He wanted you to be in this post-Fall world.
You are a miracle. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
