Meet Ariél. She is a 19-year-old sophomore at a college back east, and it is very important to her that you know she has an accent mark over the “e” in her name. When she told me her name, and I asked her how it was spelled, she was careful to mention the accent. I asked her why that was important, and she said it was what made her different… distinctive… what made her stand out. I asked her if the accent changed the pronunciation of her name at all, and she said that wasn’t important. It wasn’t as important how people said her name, as it was simply knowing it was there… the accent mark, that is.

I wish you could meet Ariél. She has bright brown eyes, and I’ve never thought of dark eyes being bright, but God somehow figured out how to make hers that way. As we talked, there was something about that accent mark that kept bringing me back. I began to think that maybe she was onto something — maybe everybody has an accent mark of some kind, if not in their name, in something else about them. Everyone has that one thing that sets them off from the rest — that thing that makes them one-of-a-kind. Actually, isn’t it true that each one of us is one-of-a-kind?

I must admit, of all the Ariels I know, this is the first one I have ever met with an accent mark in her name. Actually, I don’t remember ever meeting an Ariel before this, but if I did …

Think about it. There is only one you in the world. You’re not going to accidentally bump into another you today. You are it. You are an original. And God signed His name to your picture. You are not a print. There isn’t a fraction in the left-hand corner of you (like 13 over 100 as in print #13 out of 100 made). Just His name right there in the lower right-hand corner of you.

And that goes not only for you, but for everyone you meet. Everyone is a signed and dated original: “In My Image.” Look for it in the lower right-hand corner of everyone you meet. And look, too, for what their accent mark might be.