The Happy Penny

While playing in my bedroom Eli scooped up a penny from the floor. Without much thought he stuck it in his pocket and continued his play. Putting on his pajamas that night caused the penny to fall out onto the floor of his bedroom. 

"Where did this come from?" his mother asked curiously.  As Eli explained where he had gotten it, she talked about the importance of not taking things that belong to someone else.  She taught him that it doesn't matter if it's a small or large thing.  It matters that God is happy when we are honest and careful about everything.

Eli greeted me with an uncomfortable smile when he sat beside me at church the next day. He put beside me a piece of paper and a penny. "Read it," he told me softly.

I picked up the penny and glanced curiously at Eli's mother, my spiritual daughter, Kerri.  She smiled and nodded at the piece of paper. The note, infinitely more precious to me than the penny, was carefully written by a small hand that is only beginning to learn penmanship and spelling. Eli was sorry he had taken the penny.

I smiled, turned over the piece of paper and wrote a note back to him.  Would he put the penny in the offering plate for me?  Giving God the penny would make it a happy penny.

I watched as the lesson soaked into his soul and melted away his discomfort. I watched the arrival of joy that comes when we give everything over to God. When he looked up at me, a confident smile had erased the nervous frown and his eyes once again twinkled with love and delight.

Do you know, oh, Christian, you're a sermon in shoes?