Would You Pick Up a Penny?

If you saw a penny on the ground, would you pick it up?  I wouldn't.  After all, it's just a penny.  Why, if I wanted to buy a candy bar for 98 cents using picked-up pennies, I'd have to bend down 98 times!

There is a suggestion out there that the US should do away with pennies because it costs more to make them than they are worth.  The other side of that argument is that if prices are rounded up to the nickel instead of using the penny, we will all be paying more for our goods.

At least we can all agree that, monetarily, a penny is worth almost nothing. 

However, don't stop with that thought!   I have just finished reading a book in which a penny is so important that it was given the honor of being the title of the book!

The Penny by Joyce Meyer and Deborah Bedford is a powerful, can't-stop-reading kind of book.  I literally could not stop reading until the very last chapter, paragraph, and word.  And then there was still the epilogue to hungrily devour!

Fourteen-year-old Jenny Blake and her older sister Jean were living at home with their abusive father. Jean  thought she had escaped the helpless situation by  going away to to college.  But when she returned, she remarked that, "There's no way out, really, is there? . . . This house.  What Daddy does to us," she said. "You can't run away from it, . . .  It follows you every place you go."

But--don't forget about the picked-up penny! 

Early in the book, Jenny says: "That's the very moment I first saw the penny.  And that's the moment where this story really begins.  The penny lay wheat-side-up on the ground, so dirty as to almost be invisible. . . I wasn't accustomed to picking up pennies . . . A penny is such a little thing--it's never been worth much.  I stared at it, stepped over it, and headed toward my sister . . .I did walk past the penny at first.  When something whispered, Pick it up, Jenny--little things make a big difference, my heart almost paused in my chest.  And I knew it without a doubt.  As surely as if someone well trusted had whispered it in my ear.  This moment has something to do with your destiny.  It was only a matter of seconds before I went back.  Seconds, I found out later, that would change everything.  


Oh, if you only read one book from now until the year 2015, let it be, The Penny!  This book begins with a dirty, picked-up penny.  That same penny leads to new friendships, forgiveness, freedom, and changed lives.