I’m sure most of us have had the experience of being mistaken for someone else. Or you mistook someone for a friend. Surely, I am not the only man who has every walked up to his wife on Aisle 7 of the grocery store, started talking to her, and then slowly backed away because she turned around and IT WASN’T MY WIFE.

Ironically, I’ve never been mistaken for my twin—and she’s never been mistaken for me.

Will West and William West

In 1903, the clerk in the Leavenworth Penitentiary identified the man he was checking in as Will West. He knew this man because he had checked him in before—even though Will West said he had never been at Leavenworth. The clerk even pulled West’s photograph from his files.

“See, you have been here before.”

“I don’t know where you got that photo, but I’ve never been here.”

Upon investigation, Leavenworth discovered they had two men—one Will West and one William West—who, by all the identification measures used at that time, were identical.

All that changed with the use of fingerprints for identification.

Your fingerprints are just one thing that truly makes you you. Among the billions of people on this earth, those little loops and whorls on your fingers set you apart. You are truly a unique individual in God’s grand creation.

Your fingerprints began to form before you were born. At first, the skin on your tiny hands was smooth. Around three months, the deeper layer of skin (the basal layer) started to grow faster than the outer layer. This caused the skin of the outer layer to fold on itself. That quickly expanding lower layer got scrunched and bunched beneath the outside layer. Within five to seven weeks, your fingerprints were formed, and they were set for life.

Let’s not move too fast beyond the wonder of that. Long before you made your grand entrance into the world, your fingerprints were set and identified you as a one-of-a-kind human being.

Centuries ago, King David made that observation.

“For it was you who created my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made” (Ps. 139:13-14).

Because of their ancient and “primitive” culture, we would not be surprised that David was blown away by the wonder of pregnancy and birth. But today with all our science, technology, and advanced understanding of the human body, I am even more blown away! Science has not made the wonder of the human body less miraculous; it has made it more so! The more we discover, the more I am amazed.

Long before your personality began to blossom, you were a unique human being. Long before you left the womb (that some of us had to share with a sister!) and developed a taste for nachos and Pop Tarts, you were no less a human being, God’s creation.

And because you are God’s unique creation, you are valued. Highly valued. We often look at others and wish we could look or be like them, but if that were the case, the world would be missing the gift of you.

May we keep that perspective about ourselves—and about others. Every life is unique, and every life is valued by God. Every life. Your closest friend. That annoying neighbor. My friend, Kyle, with cerebral palsy. The unborn child.

Let’s see people as God sees them and love them accordingly.

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This post supports the study “A Cry for Justice” in Bible Studies for Life and YOU.

Join Lynn Pryor and Chris Johnson as they discuss this topic.