You are Precious
By Tammy Hopson
Mitchell County
I love true stories. When I watch television, I gravitate towards biographies or documentaries about the lives of real people. Something intrigues me about them. Three in particular stand out so strongly to me. They are the stories of Marilyn Monroe, Maria Callas, and Hedy Lamar. Sadly, all three of their lives seem to end in tragedy.
Marilyn Monroe was certainly an icon of beauty and fame. She smiled in her photographs but in her biography, you find a troubled woman who was profoundly unhappy. It is suggested that this is why she came to such a tragic end. There will always be speculation about the cause of her death at 36 years old. She may have taken her own life and she may not have. But one thing is certain, she struggled deeply inside her heart. She was a woman who seemed to have it all but couldn’t find what she was really looking for.
Maria Callas, whom I have recently learned about, was a renowned opera singer who had both beauty and talent that could not be matched. She was once considered the greatest opera singer of all time. But her life became shaky when she started to lose her voice. Some say a disease affected her voice and others say she merely lost her confidence. The idea of not being able to sing caused her to become a recluse in her Paris apartment and then die at the young age of 53. Like Marilyn, there is speculation about the cause of Maria’s death but is clear that she was also very unhappy.
Of the three women, Hedy Lamar is the one that intrigues me the most. She had beauty and brains. She was the “most beautiful woman in film” during her time and she was also an inventor. She is said to have “pioneered the technology that would one day form the basis for WIFI and GPS. She was nicknamed later as the “the mother of Wi-Fi”. However, it was not until the later years of her life that anybody even acknowledged her invention and gave her the credit she deserved. As she grew older her attempts to remain beautiful led to many plastic surgeries that left her strangely disfigured. In her later years, she too spent the last part of her life in isolation and seclusion refusing to come out of her home.
After learning about these women I can’t help but think how different their lives would have been if they had known Jesus. They all three seemed to struggle with self-worth and being valued by others. They seemed to have a fear that should they lose their talents or beauty they would no longer have value. Oh, what a deceptive trick the enemy plays on us to get us to think we are worthless. Our value is not based on what we can do or become in this world. But we all struggle with this, don’t we? I admit that sometimes I do. I have moments when I start to feel “unimportant” “worthless” or of no value to anyone. On one occasion recently my heart was contemplating this very thing, my own worth in this world. My Father so gently whispered back to my hurting heart “The value of something is what Someone will pay for it.”
I only know One who has paid for me (and for you). Jesus paid for us with His life. All of us.
In this superficial world where beauty and talent seem to be gauges of importance and worth we need to be reminded of the price that was paid for us and how dearly we are loved.
Looking further into the history of these three women you will see that they may not have had the love they needed from their earthly parents or the family around them.
But what if they had come to know their Father? Their lives could have been so different.
Isn’t this our Christian news? Isn’t this our message?
There are so many others out there hurting like these three women. There are so many more who feel unloved and not valued by anyone. Perhaps you know someone or perhaps it is you feeling this way. God says “You are precious to me. I paid a price for you.”
And if you should ask, “How do I know for sure that He loves me?” Read this…
“Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.” Isaiah 43:4 ESV
And then remember He gave you Jesus.
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Tammy Hopson has been a Mitchell County resident since 1992 and lives in Red Hill with her family. She is a mother of six children and grandmother of 14. She has been a member of Hoyle Memorial Christian Fellowship in Lawndale, NC since 1992 and helps lead The HMCF Youth Group.
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