A Penny

The shuffling of my black flat shoes became the only audible noise to me. I loved the sound my shoes would make against the concrete of the side-walk. I didn't recognize, however, that because of my exhaustion of the day, the rhythm of my shoes was the only thing I was aware of until something caught my attention. Just about fifteen feet in front of me, off on the shoulder of the side-walk, I saw an object that was not there before. Squinting my eyes in the hopes my eyes would focus to gain more detail from the distance I was at, I noticed that it was dark. The closer I got to the object, I recognized it was circular. There I was standing over this object trying to decide if I should touch it or not to ease my curiosity, but a couple seconds later, I recognized the faint picture on the circle and recognized its distinct circular size and shape and detected that is was most certainly a penny. Not moving at all, I came to another predicament: should I pick it up, or should I leave it here? Covered with filth and being worth only a cent, I almost left the penny there, but I decided to pick it up and stick it in my pocket. The rest of my walk to my house, I tried to decide if it was a victory I had just gained to find that penny or if it was just something in my daily life.

I recognized that I had no idea where that penny came from. The thought began to excite me for a moment. Why was the penny so dirty? Perhaps because it had been in the street for such a long time, but what if there was something more to it than that? Though I recognized I was fantasizing, I knew that this penny had been in the hands of multiple people before laying abandoned in the street. For all I knew, this penny that seemed completely worthless could have been held in the hands of the president of the United States. It could have been carried in a Soldier's pocket through battles defending our freedom. This penny could have be a token that someone gave to someone homeless which gave them the hope to keep going. The penny could have been through all these experiences or more, but I would never know because this penny was in a place seemingly commonplace to me. The value and identity of the penny was covered with the filth of the dirt around it. I was grateful I decided to pick up this penny when the filth on the penny almost dissuaded me.

When I entered my apartment and washed it to the best of my ability, I recognized its unique beauty. The copper color was visible again. How extraordinary is was that no matter how dirty the penny was, it could be cleaned.

I then took it to my room and stuck it in a jar with my other pennies that I had been collecting and realized that alone, the penny is the most worthless money in the American currency. All by itself it could probably not buy you anything, except for maybe a pony ride at King Soopers. But with other pennies and with other coins, it is the only coin that can do what it does. It has it's own symbol, it has it's own currency, and is made in one of two states.

So to interpret the analogy of the penny:

From a distance, people have an image, even if it is negative or dirty. The closer we get or the more we approach these people, the more we are able to recognize who that person is (their real identity). Yet, we are always faced with the question: Is this person even worth talking to or getting to know? People have all kinds of problems that we do not know if we want to deal or associate with, but we really don't understand where this person has been or what this person has gone through.

Before I continue with the analogy, I will give an example:

When someone says something hurtful to you, the first thing you want to do is point out all of the weakness of the other person and how what they did offended you. You see their weakness and it becomes highlighted into their personality and worth of them as an individual. Yet the more you begin to talk to the person, you begin to recognize that's there's more than what meets the eye. I have a student who acts out in class all the time. He says hurtful things to all the other students, called out hurtful things to me, and will trip or hurt other students. When I first saw this child, I dreaded his class knowing I had to deal with him. I saw him holding the door shut while other students were in the instrument room and I called him to tell him that was not acceptle. I raised my voice and he walked away from me. The rest of the class he kept calling out horrible remarks to me. After the class was through, I called him up to me, while signing his folder to ask him what was wrong. He told me that he had a difficult time with new teachers. Though he wouldn't completely open up to me, when I showed him I cared about him, he began to understand. The teacher told me that he was in a family situation where he's been yelled at his whole life. The only way he knows how to react to anything is in defense. He wants to be heard and understood and feels nobody sees him for who he is. Picking the penny up would equate to realizing that this person is hurting inside and does not feel loved at all.


By me washing the penny, I recognized that no matter how dirty the penny was, it could be cleaned. This thought became beautiful to me because it was so dirty, it barely had an identity No matter the mistakes we have made or the seriousness of sins we have committed, there is an atonement that has been made for us to partake of Christ's sacrifice and to repent of these sins we have committed and "Though your sins be scarlet, they shall be white as snow." For us to not believe that another person can be cleansed or can changed is a mockery of what Jesus has done for us and we then are responsible for judging that person.

And the penny was not worth much. Oftentimes, we get so caught up on the value of something. We worry so much about how we are worthless or how we are not able to amount to anything. The truth, I think, is that often times we feel that way because we are trying to do everything by ourselves, when it is physically impossible. Compared to to God himself, we may not be much, but we have also been told that our worth and our value is so high, the riches of the world do not even compare to it. We are worth so much that God would send his only Begotten Son to die for us. But we must stand together to do anything meaningful or noteworthy.

My friend posted a video that kind of portrays what I am explaining:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1566836164169