In God’s eyes, you never lose your value. Let me illustrate this life-saving truth by means of a story.

The retreat master held up a freshly printed, twenty dollar bill.

“How many of you would like to have this bill?” he asked the anxious audience.

All hands went up.

He proceeded to crumble the $20 note in his hand.

Then he asked, “Who still wants this $20 bill.”

All hands went up in the air again.

“Well, what if I do this—”

He dropped the note on the ground, and began to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up from the floor, crumpled and dirty.

“Now who wants this bill?”

Still, the hands went up in the air.

“My friends, you have all learned a very important lesson today,” he explained. “No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth twenty dollars.”

The same is true of us. Our value never changes.

Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the bad decisions we make, and by unexpected circumstances that come our way. We may feel as though we are worthless, and that life isn’t fair. But, no matter what has happened or may happen in your life, you will never lose your value.

Dirty or clean, crumpled or neatly creased, you are still priceless to the One who loves you. The worth of your life lies, not in what you do or who you know, but in your precious value as a child of God.

You are special because God loves you.

Never forget that!

—Fr. Hugh Duffy