Writing 4 February 2014 Worth: When you see yourself what do you see? When you look around what do you hear? If someone asks you How much are you worth? Could you tell them? Not what you think your worth, but what you re actually worth. Could you look at something and guess what it s worth is? When you look at the things around you what do you see? Do you see things of value, Things that are useless? Maybe you don t see anything but an empty room. That s not important. The important thing is how valuable it is to you? When you see the person next to you. You look at their clothes, how their hair is done, if they have a cell phone, how they talk, if it s a girl what type of makeup she has on, if any. To most people, that would tell the worth of someone. Whether they are high maintenance or not. Do other people have the same value for things as you do? The worth that you see will not always be the worth that actually is. Some things are not what they seem to be. Such as in the titanic movie the necklace better known as the heart of the ocean is worth $200 million today. Most people don t realize that necklace was made for only $10. When you see that necklace you most likely think of beauty, elegance, and money. That is a prime example of true value. People can put a name on something saying that Kate Winslet (the girl who played rose) wore it in the titanic movie. Raising the cost by tons. That necklace may not mean anything to you though. So to you it might only be worth a couple of dollars. If you bought a car that was in very good condition but was used. The original owners bought it new for $40,000. The people selling the car sold it to you for $15,000. This would be the example of the

worth not being shone. The car was bought for 40,000 but was only sold for 15,000 granted the car would have lost some worth with it being used but not that much. So that means the people buying or selling the car didn t know the true worth. The worth of something and how it is presented are two completely different things, yet still connected in one way or another. For example, if your deceased grandmother gave you a necklace, that necklace would be invaluable to you but, to someone else it might just be a necklace. To you its worth more than anything because someone you loved gave you something that can t be replaced. You can try and explain that to anyone but you will be the only person who really cares about that necklace. In the story The Necklace there was this girl who was poor. Her and her husband didn t have a lot of money. Although they didn t have a lot of money her husband ended up getting tickets to go to a ball. The wife didn t have any jewelry to wear. So, she borrowed some from her best friend. The necklace that she borrowed had diamonds all the way around. It appeared to be very expensive. She wore it to the ball but when she got home the necklace was no longer around her neck. Her and her husband looked and looked but found nothing. Her and her husband had to borrow five-thousand dollars from friends. They bought a brand new necklace to replace the old one. She gave that necklace to her friend. They were in debt for ten years. When she met her friend walking on the street after they had paid the debt off. She explained to her friend how she had lost the necklace and had to buy a brand new one for thirty-six thousand francs. Her Friend laughed and hugged her when she told her. She looked at her friend and asked her why she was laughing. Her friend explained to her that the necklace was worth no more than five hundred francs. The necklace ended up not having the worth that it appeared to have.

How you see yourself is also an example of worth. Most teenagers are confident in front of people but behind closed doors think they are worthless, don t deserve to live, or even hate how they look. Some people may even tell you that you re worthless but what they don t know is that no one is worthless. God shows us that we were bought with a very expensive price and that any insecurity we might have doesn t matter. That price proves us to be very valuable. Jesus is the one who paid that price. When Jesus died on that cross your value just sky rocketed. saving. J.K. Rowling said We're all human, aren't we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth In psalms 139:13-14 it says For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. I want to focus on the part where it says I am fearfully and wonderfully made. This shows us that we are wonderfully made. We are made by God and there is nothing on our outward appearance that is going to change our worth from being the most expensive thing on this earth. In Luke 12:6-7 it tells us that we are more valuable than sparrows. We are more valuable than not just one or two but many sparrows. We are more valuable than anything to God. There is nothing more valuable than us. So we must understand that the things on this earth are not worth anything. We must focus on God and realize that he is the most valuable thing that we could have.

In Mathew 6:24 it shows us that we cannot love two masters. Imagine you were a slave that had two masters. One of your masters was kind and loving, but the other one was mean and would beat you if you messed up. You would love the master that was kind and loving and hate the one that wasn t. So God tells us that we can t love him and money at the same time. We need to understand that money has no value to God. Yes I understand that here on earth you need it to live. Although you need it here on earth, it is of no value to God and therefore you won t be able to use it to get into heaven. Now I want you to answer the questions I asked when I began. Did you have a different answer this time than you did the first? Do you realize now that the worth that you see may not always be the worth that actually is? From now on I challenge you to look closely at something (or in some cases someone) before you judge what it is worth. Because you never know it might just surprise you at what it is actually worth. Bible verses http://www.openbible.info/topics/self_worth Examples- I made them up.

Information about self-worth- The bible, Quotes fromhttps://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/worth?page=1, and the counselor/therapist I went to. The example about the necklace story- http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/ubooks/neck.shtml The J.K. Rowling quote- https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/worth?page=1