You Are Unique!

MARILYN JANE RIMMINGTON

Do you ever feel you've been left behind in the race—that those around you are all winners, and you a perennial loser? To accept these arguments is to believe that God is playing favorites—that He has given more good to one of His children than to another. But this state of thought is corrected as we understand God's universal, impartial love for all His creation and each individual's unique place to fill in that creation.

Each of us has a singular position in life, a place no one else can fill. We each have a special brand of beauty, a particular way of expressing love. Mrs. Eddy writes, "Each individual must fill his own niche in time and eternity."^{Retrospection and Introspection, p. 70;}

Christ Jesus could have been pointing to the importance of every individual in the divine order when he said: "Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows."^{Luke 12:6, 7.}

How can we begin to find our niche so we can fill it? How can we bring into our present experience a greater sense of achievement and fulfillment? By claiming it! Because each of us in his true being is spiritual, an individual expression of God, we have divine authority for claiming the qualities inherent in God—in Principle, Life, Truth, Love, Mind, Soul, Spirit. Right now we can begin to claim for ourselves the ability to express Mind's completeness, Love's purpose, Life's richness, Soul's satisfaction. These and infinitely more of the divine qualities are ours without measure. If we feel we're not achieving enough, it may be we're not claiming enough!

What can keep us from beginning this heaven-born activity now? Nothing. Evil has no intelligence or power to cause us to resist or delay. But apathy and inertia brought about by self-centered thinking sometimes slow our progress. Isn't unselfed love the whole point of this activity? Isn't our real purpose to be what God has created us to be—His complete and glorious expression? To bless those around us by seeing them this way as well? The man of God's creating is forever upright, loving, joyful, free. He includes recognition, fulfillment. In claiming these divine qualities for ourselves we need to acknowledge them as true for all mankind. In fact, unless we do, we cannot effectively claim them for ourselves.

When we begin to see and accept that we each have a unique place in the divine scheme, we will not be so tempted to compare our gains with those of others. To make such a comparison can provide a perfect nest for self-pity and self-depreciation. In turn, these darkened states of thought may engender jealousy, rivalry, frustration. Rather, we can come to recognize every expression of beauty and excellence as evidence of God's self-revealing activity, of His perfection. We can know that it points to the fullness and glory we all express as sons and daughters of God. The more we understand and acknowledge the universality and impartiality of God's goodness, the more permanent becomes our consciousness of His goodness and the more evident is that goodness in our lives.

Our niche is not a comfortable rut of self-satisfaction. It continues to unfold and expand as we fill it—as we live the truths of Christian Science. Then we find a higher purpose, a more spiritual love, impelling our lives to greater usefulness to all mankind.

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