This vintage metal thimble etched with “SPAIN,” Etsy says, might be worth about fifteen dollars for one, thirty-six dollars for twelve. Whatever the price today, I didn’t pay it. I found it in a box of mom’s items left on earth when she went to Heaven. She is not coming back for it. If she did, she would probably say, “I never paid more than ten cents for any thimble.”

If someone were to offer me $35 for it, I wouldn’t take it. Of course not. Thirty-five dollars would be used up in three minutes at Walmart, an hour at my stove, and fifteen minutes at the dinner table. Then what would sit so primly in my old metal dental cabinet?

It has good company there. That tiny bottle behind it (about twice its height) was used as a container for olive oil which my Grandma Vida carried in her purse for Grandad Jim’s use when he needed anointing oil as he prayed for Jesus to come heal someone.

James 5:13-16 Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.

Strange thing about value. It is often based on how much you love somebody such as the value God placed on me to give his Son over to a terrifying excruciating death as a sacrifice for my soul. That’s the value He put on me – and you.

One more thing. The value set on thimbles and bottles often depends on their condition. If they are near perfect, no dents, no scratches or cracks, no stains, or holes, they are worth more than dirty, broken, stained, and disfigured items. To God every soul is valued alike; each was worth the sacrifice of his Son.