𝐍𝐨𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲 𝐈𝐬 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞

A few weeks ago, I was absent for about a week from my regular activities due to a family event. About halfway through the week, I remember thinking about the people in my everyday life and wondering had anyone even thought of me.

Don't get me wrong. It wasn't insecurity I was feeling. However, I was pondering my own insignificance. In fact, I was thinking how insignificant we all really are in the big scheme of things. As loved as we may be by family and friends, as adored as celebrities are by their fans, and even as revered as leaders may be by their followers, we all seem to leave but a fleeting memory. Life goes on. It must. Someone else picks up the responsibilities. Someone else fills a vacant seat or takes the limelight. Friends find new confidantes. A common phrase in corporate America is "Everybody is replaceable."

The imagery I see in my mind is trying to dig a hole in sand. Think of it. You can't dig straight down without surrounding grains of sand falling in to fill the space. Our lives leave a void and nature abhors a vacuum. The void must be filled.

Out of curiosity, I did a quick Google™ search to see what percentage of people are remembered by posterity. Even in my frame of mind, the answer surprised me, on many levels:
* What first surprised me (disclaimer this wasn't a published scientific study) was the first answer I found, which was "effectively 0%."
* I was also surprised by the fact that I really couldn't find a good "scientific" estimate. Of course, the more I thought about it, the more that makes sense - I mean, how do you even define who is remembered. For example, I read an article written by a professor who had compiled a list of people living in 2009 who his students thought would be remembered in 1000 years. I hadn't even heard of a lot of those people myself so, as we know, memory is relative.
* For reference, the professor mentioned above listed 150 names. In 2009 the global population was roughly 6.8 billion. If this professor and his students' predictions are even remotely accurate, then the answer I mentioned in my first bullet ("effectively 0%") is spot on.
* Google™ suggested for me a common search related to my question which was "how many years after a person dies are most people remembered?" The answer - 115 years. This one wasn't so much a surprise to me as, maybe "sobering" is a better word.

So, to recap, within a little over a century, chances are we will all be forgotten. How insignificant we must be.

And yet, we're not.

To indicate how very significant we are, I did another search: "How many people have ever lived?" The answer, according to Google™, is roughly 108 billion. That is 108,000,000,000.

You are 1 in 108,000,000,000. To help comprehend how large that number is, think of a single sheet of loose-leaf paper. If you stacked 108 billion sheets of looseleaf paper, that stack would be 23,437.5 miles high, or tall enough to stretch from Miami, FL, to Buffalo, NY, via the South Pole.

Out of 108 billion people (and who knows how many more to come), God chose you.

He chose you to live the life you're living. He chose you to have the gifts He gave you for the life you're living. He chose you to be the blessing your family and friends need in their lives.

He chose you to listen to last time you cried. He chose you to rejoice with last time you celebrated. He chose you to breathe life into your lungs.

And He chose you to die on a cross for nearly 2000 years before you were born. He chose you to send His son to earth for persecution and betrayal and to die on a cross for.

He chose you to be His child.

He chose you to be you.

Wherever you are today (both physically and mentally), I want you to know how very special you are. You are literally more than one in a million. You are exactly who and exactly where God needs you to be. You are so loved that, of 108 billion people, he knows how many hairs are on your head.

Not even you know yourself that well.

God Bless you, Son-Beam. Have a wonderful weekend and know that you are NOT replaceable.

Love, Laurie