I remember a little gaggle of us sitting around in my friend’s basement. I was 11 years old and we were gathered together to celebrate the birthday of said friend. It was a fun party and we, as little girls are known to do, were laughing a giggling about this and that.

One of the girls said to another, “What’s your middle name?”

“Lynn” replied the other.

“Mine too!” Sequels erupted and then other’s joined in.

“Hey, my middle name is Lynne too!”

“No way!” The first Lynn shouted.

“My middle name is Kathrine.”

“Elizabeth” said another.

“Suzanne”

“Anne, with an e”, said my friend with the red hair.

Then all eyes were on me. I knew the question was coming, I was the only one who didn’t offer. I didn’t have a middle name but I so desperately wanted to fit in. I was already so different from my fair skinned friends.

“Lynn,” I said. Trying it out in my head. Sure, Mona Lynn sounds ok. “My middle name is Lynn too.” I said sheepishly.

“What! That is crazy! All four of us have the same middle name, what are the chances!” my friend exclaimed.“We should become a gang, and get t-shirts.” She pulled us in close and we all put our arms on each other shoulders. We were a gang.

I felt like a fraud but the amazing feeling of being like the others far outweighed the tinge of guilt I felt for lying. In that moment, I vowed to myself that as soon as I was older, and knew how, I would get my named legally changed to Mona Lynn Manocha. Guilt assuaged.

Eventually it came out that I indeed didn’t have a middle name. Embarrassed as I was, that hard lesson had a lasting impact. It was better to be me than try and be someone else. It was OK to be different.

So often we ignore, play down, dismiss our own value (or in my case lie) because we want to belong. We underestimate our worth, completely forgetting that there has never been, nor will there ever be, another person on this earth like us. Failing to honour what makes us unique, we deny the gift of life God has entrusted us with and the distinctly beautiful person God has made us to be.

Did you know that we are are more than the 37.2 trillion cells composing what you see in the mirror? We exist beyond the physical and according to Genesis 1:26-28, we are not an accident or an afterthought. We are divinely created souls, made in the image of a living God.

Embracing the beauty of my differences has honestly been something I’ve had to learn. While I don’t do it perfectly, I’m definitely better at accepting my unique God-given design than I was in junior high.

Jeremiah 1:5 tells us God intentionally made us to be different. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

But, we must each choose to embrace our unique design and live serving the God who made us. And as followers of Jesus we are called to be different. To think differently than the world. To act differently than the world. To love differently than the world. God made us to be different!