My first year out of college, I followed a music teacher who had been at the school for fourteen years. In fact, it may have been sixteen; I don’t recall. Things were going well. I loved teaching general music to elementary students. I loved finding fresh ways to motivate junior high students to sing and to set aside their musical inhibitions. I loved the challenge of high school students who were in choir for “an easy ‘A’ in class.”

However, about two months into the school year—when the novelty of a fresh-out-of-college teacher was wearing off—the high school students began to say, “But Miss N. (the former teacher) didn’t do it that way.” I had finally heard that enough times that I decided to make it a teaching tool. Knowing it would probably come up again, I took my driver’s license to class with me. Sure enough, someone said, “Miss N. used to let us….” Aha! I was prepared!

I handed the student my driver’s license and said, “Would you please read the name on that license.” He read my name. I handed it to two or three more students, repeating the process each time. After each had successfully read my name, I said, “So, let me get this straight: the name on that license is Brenda Strohbehn—not Miss N., right?” They agreed. “So why are you expecting me to act like Miss N.?” It never came up again.

Many times I find myself comparing people to other people or situations to other situations. Yet God created each of us in specific ways, with specific abilities, and for specific reasons. My dad often shared with me the familiar quotation, “If both of us were the same, one of us wouldn’t be necessary.” It’s true!

As I look around at the varied members of my community, my church family, or even my physical family, I am reminded that each person will not react, reply, or respond in the same way I will, and that doesn’t make them wrong and me right—or vice versa. Just as I accept that God knows everything about me, I must accept that He knows (and created) everything about others. As I humbly view others through this filter, I see the beautiful shapes, colors, character qualities, skills, weaknesses, and talents that make each of us precisely the right person God chooses to use at a given time for a given purpose!

Suggested reading: Psalm 139:13-17

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Letter-writing crew: In your e-mail or card to someone today, thank the recipient for using his or her unique skills and abilities in a way that makes that individual an extra-special blessing to you.

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