Three-year-old Gracie was playing in the living room, testing things out. Her mother saw her pick up a nickel, examine it, then swallow it. The mother immediately picked her up, turned her upside-down and pounded her on her back. Whereupon, Gracie coughed up two dimes.

When that happened the mother really got worried. Hysterically, she shouted to her husband who was out in the back yard, “Gracie just swallowed a nickel and coughed up two dimes. Hurry! Tell me what to do!"

The father shouted back, "Keep feeding her nickels. We can use the money." (1)

The world around us constantly tells us we're not worth very much. Big business practices seem to concur. We're only worth as much as they can get out of us.

But the Biblical estimate of a single person's worth is beyond human comprehension…