I was sitting in the balcony pew at church. I wasn't listening to the sermon at all, but I was eight so no one expected me to. I had been in love, or as much in love as a little girl could be, with Obadiah for over 4 years. He was a year older than me, and I thought that he was the stuff. Instead of paying attention to the preacher down on the stage, I was watching Obadiah who was sitting in the “cool section” of the balcony. Obadiah knew I liked him a lot, but he was way too cool for me.

We knelt to pray, and everyone started to leave. I heard Obadiah and his best friend, Daniel, run up behind me. Obadiah said, “Hey, I need to ask you something.” I said okay, and we started to walk out of the church so he could do so. While we were walking I heard from Obadiah, “You had better pay me the twenty dollars, Daniel.” I instantly knew what was happening. Obadiah was being paid to ask the lame girl to date him. I was worth twenty dollars. We made it outside, and he asked me the question, but instead of standing up for myself and saying no, I lowered myself down to what I thought I was worth: twenty dollars. I said yes.

People in this world will make you feel like you are worth less than you really are. They will make you feel like you are only worth twenty dollars. I gave into the lies when I was eight years old. I know now, though, that I am worth much more than that. I am just as weird as I was when I was eight. The only difference now is, I don't care what other people think and say about me. I am worth more than twenty dollars.

The trick to believing in yourself is to stop listening to the negative people around you. Who are they to say that you are only worth twenty dollars? The people that constantly put you down think that they know what “normal” is and that you are far from it. Good! Life is not as much fun if you try to be normal. I know; I tried it for so long. I realized later that it is so much harder to pretend to be someone I am not for the people who worry about being “normal.” I wasn't being me. I was giving in to the belief that I was only worth twenty dollars.

I decided that I was going to be myself. I was going to wear knee high socks during my basketball game even though my whole team hated it. I was going to be dramatic while acting out Hamlet. I was going to be worth more than twenty dollars. In fact, I am worth Jesus dying on the cross for me. And He did the same for you, so you can be worth more than twenty dollars.

I see elementary children who are just like I was. They believe they have to dress a certain way or act “normal” to be accepted. They are listening to the lies being told around them. They need to cut off the negative people and listen to the only “person” who does matter: God. These children believe that they are less than twenty dollars, and if they believe in these fabrications then they will end up turning into someone completely different.

Children aren’t the only people who fall into the deception. Adults are so focused on the world and what the world can give them that they change themselves to adapt to the worlds views. People need to realize that the world holds up dollar signs for everything. The world says, “You are only worth twenty dollars.” What everyone seems to be missing out on is Jesus holding out his bleeding hands and saying, “You’re worth everything.”