If you have a child (or little brother/sister, nephew/niece, etc) you can personalise this illustration by using a similar incident from their childhood.
When my daughter was just a few years old she loved dolls, and for a long time one doll in particular. Everywhere she went this doll went with her. If we got in the car and this doll wasn't with us we'd have to go back and get it. When she went to sleep at night this doll slept beside her. When we went to the Supermarket the doll went shopping with us.
This beloved little doll was neither expensive nor beautiful. It had suffered an accident when placed in the oven. To a toddler a cupboard and an oven are pretty much alike, and in the oven one day went dolly. Later, when preparing dinner, mum turned the oven on. After a few minutes she noticed a strange aroma wafting throughout the house. She searched and searched until finally she realised it was coming from the oven. The oven door was opened and there was dolly, with one hand melted off, her eyes melted back into her head, her body sunken and her head misshapen.
But this did not deter our daughter's love for dolly. Whether disfigured or not dolly still went everywhere my daughter went. Nothing could dent her love for that dolly.
Application: God's love. That's the nature of God's love for us. God loves us not because we are beautiful and shiny or new, but just because he loves us! The reality is we're all a lot like dolly - we have very grotesque and misshapen parts to our character, our values, our ambitions, our relationships. Yet God still loves us!
Application: acceptance, self-worth. We often make the mistake of thinking that our own or others' value lies in beauty and perfection. The reality is we are all a lot like the mis-shapen doll. All of us have things about us that are ugly and distorted. Yet what makes us valuable and what makes others valuable is love, the fact that we are loved - by God and by others.
Source: Scott Higgins
Applications: love, God's love, sin, self image, self worth