It was just another day. Another day of surviving. Another day of bad news, news of loved ones lost. Just like all the days before it so far.

Another day of killing so that I could live.

I’m not going to go into the details. I was in a war and I killed people. That’s basically it.

That day, I got up early, ate my rations, pulled on my armor, and went on sniper patrol. Sniping is not an easy job, and I’m talking about a sniper gun that automatically punches bullet-holes in anybody without an American permission chip in their head. Still, it’s not easy. You have to keep your eye on the target the whole time.

Nothing unusual happened that day. No victory, no defeat. No sudden arrival of a savior. I just killed. And killed. I killed until it was the next guy’s turn.

I realized the incredible value of life that day. I used to see in a pile of dead bodies a pile of empty shells, enemies, insects without lives. I thought that they’re purpose was to run straight into my bullets. That day, I wondered how far they had to run to get to them. What wonderful, beautiful, terrible things had they seen? How many lives intersected with theirs? What events led them to me? How many shouts and whispers? How many jokes had been told? How many punches to the face? How many first kisses? How many last ones? How many wife-made meals? How many children? How much money? How many tears would be shed on the irrelevant beetles I just stomped?

I then wondered about the meaning of significance. Logically, we are all beetles.

Logically, the most significant thing in the universe is the universe. Everything else is minuscule compared to it. Compared to the most significant thing, we would not be able to see ourselves with a microscope.

I then scoffed at the thought of God. A omnipotent power that loves post-microscopic beetles.

Or are we?

I thought back at the long road the enemy took to get to my bullets. No other species in the most “significant” thing takes one like it. I then thought that the long road is what makes us significant.

The long road idea allowed God back into the picture. I recalled from my Sunday-school days the story of how God made the universe. How he made everything good, but made us REALLY good. How we are an image of God.

And that’s when it hit me.

We are significant because God is significant. He made creatures that are as significant, a trait only we and he possess.

We have a life. That life is unique from any other life of any other species. And our individual lives are unique to others. No two long roads are the same. God gave us a life. One life. I ended more than a hundred of them. When I realized this, I ran.

I said that nothing unusual happened that day. I was kind of wrong. That day, a man sneaked through American battlegrounds without getting sniped by the very gun he had used on many others.