The Missing Link

"The missing link" is a common phrase evolutionists use to explain gaps in the fossil record.  Here is fossil A and here is fossil C.  They have some similar characteristics, but it looks like there should be a transitional fossil B in between them.  It's difficult to see how A could lead to C without the existence of B.  Therefore, the reasoning goes. B must exist somewhere.  It simply hasn't been discovered yet.

I was contemplating my lack of overt, worldly "success" this week.  No national or Olympic sports career, no home-based-business fancy car, no publishing contract, no weekly paycheck even.  And then...I thought of Mary.

Mary, mother of Jesus.  Don't worry, this is historical, not spiritual. 

There's not much recorded about Mary, and nothing about her ancestors.  They're lost in the mists of time. So are mine, if I go back a thousand or so years.  They definitely existed, or I wouldn't be here.  In fact, each one of them had to exist. 

Along the way, as with Mary's ancestors, it's statistically likely there were some unhappy relationships, some bad decisions, some "failures", and definitely no knowledge of who this particular 21st-century descendent would be.

Mary hit the world stage big time, with everything in her background working toward that moment.  Remove any "link" from that chain, and she wouldn't have existed. 
Just like me.  Or my children. 

Maybe my life will be a culmination of some sort (hey, it's never too late, right?) or, more likely,  I'm "just"a necessary link, either genetically, to a great-great-great grand, or through love and influence.  There's more than one way to participate in destiny!

From that perspective, everyone's a necessary link in at least one chain.  "Success" doesn't make any link more important or necessary than any other.  I hope the children understand they don't have to be the "best" or "brightest" to participate in something great, and that their lives are not in vain, no matter where circumstances lead them.  They're precious, valuable links in a thousands-year-old chain.  Pretty cool, when you stop to think about it.