Pennies From Heaven

On the way to work, my mind was filled with no-win scenarios.  I kept bumping into the idea of how much I stink at "manifesting my destiny".  I've failed to harness the power of positive thinking.  Somehow fate felt like it was all my fault.  It didn't matter that I don't really believe this.  The feeling was there just the same.  Finding something hopeful on a rainy March morning was hard.

I park the car and open the door and step into a puddle of pennies.  These weren't ordinary pennies.  These were "pennies from heaven."

Before my children were born, I read about a cute custom practiced in some families.  They taught that random coins found in random places were signs that someone in heaven was thinking about you.  We have Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.  Why not "pennies from heaven?"  So, when my children were still very small, I taught them to look for pennies and coins in random places and to remember that love can transcend death.  Loved ones that die are still alive in our hearts and we in theirs.

At first, these pennies from heaven were just a symbol of a greater truth.  I really didn't believe that someone in heaven was putting them in our path.  The kids loved the idea.  We found an old sugar jar (This is not a small jar.  I probably can hold at least 2 quarts.) at the thrift store with a tiny chip on the rim and a smart crystal lid.  We started to collect our heaven pennies.

We still have that jar.  It's now 1/3 full.  When an unaware husband and father recently pulled the silver coins from the jar, the kids and I reacted as a united front.  The Heaven Penny Collection Society felt violated.  We regrouped, informed the errant father and accepted the fate of our silver coins with grace.  Our heaven pennies have come to mean a lot more to us than I realized.

What started out as a cute childhood myth has evolved into something more.  I've come to question the timing of the discovery of our pennies.  It would seem more than random.  In recent years, worry has often been an unwelcome companion.  Some how when I most need a reminder that "I am not alone" the day brings unexpected pennies from heaven.

Several years ago, on a trip to the Dollar Store,  I was distracted by financial worries.  As I parked the car, a desparate prayer crossed my mind.  "God help us" repeated in my head.  We got out of the car and an excited little boy said, "Mom!  Look at all the pennies.  They're heaven pennies!"
We picked up 36 pennies that day to put in our jar.  Thirty-six pennies won't buy much but they pointed to a wealth beyond money, the kind of wealth you can take with you when you die.

As I picked up the dirty, discarded pennies that day, I did so along a little boy who marvelled at his good fortune.  It was my good fortune as well.  I began to wonder if someone was putting heaven pennies in my path.  Rational me doubted it.  But hopeful, mystical me, took comfort in the idea that someone in heaven was watching out for us.  Over the months and years that followed, we find random coins that we carry home and place in the jar marked "Sugar".  It is a sweet idea.

Today, heaven pennies were not on my mind.  I struggled to weigh possible options for shelter and for work in the months ahead.  The options seem surprisingly limited.  There was no song on the radio to distract me.  The rain on my windshield matched my mood.  I stepped out of a dirty, tired van with too many miles on it.  My foot landed in the center of a pool of pennies.  There were at least two dozen copper-colored coins at my feet and those were only the ones I could see.

Stooping, I picked up as many as I could.  I was rather self-conscious.  After all, someone probably threw them out of their car on purpose.  Here was a desparate women picking them up.  Still I couldn't pass them by.  I tossed them on the dirty floor mat to dry.  A sugar jar awaited them.  Life on a rainy Tuesday morning just got a lot sweeter thanks to a pool of wet, dirty pennies.

Maybe it's naive to believe that coincidence is something more than it is.  The heaven penny concept can't be proven.  Even I doubt there is anything to it.  My desire to believe may be only wishful thinking. 

I don't really care.  It doesn't matter.  These coincidental encounters with random pennies are reminders.  They point to what is most important to me.  When I most need reminding, my day is touched by the magical inspiration of a heaven penny or two.  Coins of very little worth and of no real financial assistance to me, touch my heart and open it to a wealth that permeates the world around us.  I just have to let it in.  Money have I none (or at least almost none) but in the most important ways, I am rich beyond my dreams of avarice.

This knowledge, these pennies won't forestall financial disaster but they have eased a troubled and weary mind.  A piece of heaven touched my life today.  I can walk into tomorrow.  Who knows what I may find.