So, a man is doing his Saturday morning errands, drives to the Post Office and purchases a book of stamps. As he's placing the stamps on his many bills, and he's pondering the dwindling of his paycheck with the mailing of these checks, he notices something strange. His $.23 stamp looks funny. The 3 is backward.

'Ah, I bet they screwed up when they were making this batch.' He purchases another book, and immediately checks to see if the 3 is printed correctly. It is.

He carefully removes all of the misprinted stamps from his bills and replaces them with the stamps printed properly. He takes the other book of stamps home, and spends the next four hours on the internet researching these mis-printed stamps. He joins a few e-mail lists dedicated to stamp collecting, and waits. Everyday he searches the discussion threads to see if anyone else comes up with the same stamps.

A month later, he sees it. The title read 'misprinted stamps are recalled'. He opens the thread to learn that his precious book of stamps have been recalled, and the lucky few who may have received the stamps hold something priceless in their hands. The post office was able to recall all but 10 books of stamps. He also notices that there are collectors scrambling to find and purchase these stamps. They are offering upwards of $25,000 for these rare and precious stamps that very few people possess.

This scenario made me think of those hundreds of parents who find out that their precious child is going to be differnet. He or she isn't going to have exactly the same things as other children. Perhaps they won't ever learn how to read, learn how to run, ride a bike, walk on their own. Those children who God has decided to will into being are one in a million. In every other scenario in life, we accept these circumstances as indications of a particular blessing. Yet, when it comes to children, we want them to be like clones, like so many postage stamps that are printed out in uniformity. Yet, it is the particularity of every child that really makes the world beautiful, that brings to each family something that isn't exactly like other families.