Isaiah 43:4a – “Because you are precious in my sight and honored, and I love you…..” (HCSB)

I was sitting with a group of friends, sipping coffee and chatting about everything that came to mind, when one of my friends expressed her desire for a ring with chocolate diamonds. Someone else in the group began to tell us that chocolate diamonds are actually low quality diamonds and that before they were renamed “chocolate” by the Le Vian Corporation, they were just brown and were used in industrial settings or even tossed into the road with the gravel. The people who can determine the value of these stones thought they were useless. As she told about how someone had seen their value and elevated them from “useless brown rocks” to “expensive chocolate diamonds”, I was suddenly overcome with the realization “That’s how we are!” Many times the people who we have allowed to determine our value label us useless. We allow the world to determine that we are stones to be trashed rather than diamonds to be treasured. I have no idea if my friend’s story about the brown diamonds is true, but I do know that when God looks at me, He doesn’t see me as paltry; He sees me as precious. I may not ever be honored in the opinion of the world, but Isaiah 43:4 tells me that I am honored in the opinion of the One who created the world. Darlene Sala has said, “God has formed many diamonds, but He made only one you”, and Psalm 139:14 says I am wonderfully made. People may see me as worthless, but God sent His Son to die for me because He thinks I’m worth it. I thank You, Lord, that when You look at me You see something precious. Psalm 3:3 tells me that You lift my head, and I know that in Your eyes I am cherished.