THE DAY I WOKE UP TO THE STARS

I woke up to the stars yesterday. Well, what I mean is I woke up, got dressed, went outside and it was still sort of night time. The stars were bright and twinkling and the air was frosty.

It's easy to forget sometimes how much of a miracle it is that we're here at all. Whether or not you believe in a Creator, you have to agree that our existence is a bit unlikely in the grand scheme of things.

Take the Solar System for example. If the Sun were the size of a beach ball, the Earth would be a pea about 65m (215ft) away. Meanwhile the outer edge of the Solar System, where Pluto floats out to the Kuiper Belt, would be over a mile and a half down the road.

The whole thing is enormous, and our little planet is spinning along in the only part of it that's temperate enough for life to have developed.

Not only that but despite there being billions of other solar systems in the galaxy, Earth-like planets are a bit of rarity. In the whole history of the Universe, there hasn't yet been a civilization that's found a way to replicate itself far enough across the stars to reach us. And in our scale where the Earth is the size of a pea, the galaxy itself would be 416 million kilometres wide. That's the scaled down model. Finding Earth in the middle of all that would be like trying to find a tiny needle in a haystack the size of the Russian Federation.

And for all we know, we're the only ones in this vast empty chasm - the most interesting planet there is.

You've been born into a world that might just be completely unique.

What's more, in the whole history of that tiny world, there has never been anyone, anywhere, quite like you. The seemingly random combination of genetics, personality and environment that's been steadily collecting through your ancestors has happened, to produce exactly you - unique, inexpressibly beautiful; a one-off piece of unmatchable art that will never be repeated.

The constellation Orion sparkled back at me - quiet, ancient and distant, the great hunter of the ages with his sword and bow. Generations of us must have stared up at those stars on mornings like this, wondering what it could all mean. For me, it means significance in the now and in the here, chosen and somehow loved despite being so small and unfindable and insignificant. Life is so precious.

I wrapped my coat around me, promised myself and the God who set me in motion that I'd make the most of the day.

I should get up early more often.