So this past Saturday night I was all alone, which I actually do like on occasion because it means that I can watch any movie I want.  There was a DVD sitting on the shelf that I hadn’t seen starring Kate Hudson, who I think is great.  So I made myself a huge bowl of popcorn and sat down to watch ‘A little bit of Heaven.’  Little did I know the movie was about a young woman, Marley, diagnosed with bowel cancer, and how she and her friends and family processed the diagnosis and the illness as it progressed.

Yes, a complete tear jerker which I figured out early on and desperately went on a hunt for a box of tissues, coming back to the couch with a roll of toilet paper, no fancy tissues to be found.  Extremely glad I was alone I sat there and sobbed as I watched a movie with the emotions, feelings and reality I too have experienced.

But the thing that moved me the most was how much Marley mattered to her mum, her dad, her friends and her boyfriend.  She was so incredibly important to each of them in special and different ways.  Not only was she not coping well with cancer and its treatment, but neither were the people around her who loved her so very dearly.

Why?  Because Marley was precious to them.  There wasn’t and isn’t ever going to be another Marley.  She was unique, she was individual and she was special.  She was so very important to each of her family and friends because she was completely irreplaceable.

I know exactly how they felt having lost my husband to cancer.  Mark is irreplaceable.  He was special, unique, and precious, and all of us, family and friends, love and miss him because of the unique relationships we had with him.

Just recently I read Philip Yancey’s new book, “The question that never goes away. What is God up to in a world of such tragedy and pain?” (Excellent read!)

In it he writes this, referring to the Sunny Hook School tragedy that took place on the 14 December 2012.

‘I’ve seen demonstrated a deep belief that the people who died mattered, that something of inestimable worth was snuffed out on 14 December. In the midst of trauma even a sternly secular culture recognises the worth of individual human beings, a carryover from the Christian belief that each one reflects God’s image.  I recalled that after 11 September 2001, the New York Times committed to running an obituary to honour each one of the three thousand people who died in the World Trade Center attacks, as if they mattered and were not cosmic accidents in a universe of pitiless indifference.’

I love how he says that each person is of ‘inestimable worth’.  Because isn’t that the truth!

God tells us exactly the same thing in his word, the Bible, about how valuable we are to him…

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! 
Your workmanship is marvellous—how well I know it…

You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.

How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered!

I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand!

Psalm 139:13-18 (NLT)

And when Jesus was on earth he said this;

And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.

Luke 12:7 (NLT)

How amazing that Almighty God values us so much, that something as trivial as our hair being numbered is of significance to Him.

How mind blowing that we are so precious to Him that we are always in his thoughts.  

And how crucial for us to know that we are not some cosmic accident, but every one of us is created with love as a one of a kind masterpiece.

I am challenged from this time on to remember every person I come in contact with, whether family and friends that I love, or people I meet at work or even people behind the checkouts in stores, are special, unique and irreplaceable.

I am challenged to let my family and friends know that they are loved and special to me.  And I am challenged to treat each and every person with the love and respect that something of such inestimable worth and value deserves.

…Body and soul, I am marvellously made! Psalm 139:14 (The Message)

So God created man in His own image, in the image and likeness of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Genesis 1:27 Amplified Bible (AMP)