200 Pennies

2 dollars is not a lot of money.

But 200 pennies is a lot of pennies.

Back in high school, I discovered the website MLIA (my life is awesome). It was filled with several everyday moments that made someone’s day. Some were silly, such as loving when their boyfriend left out crunchy leaves in the fall. Some were serious, such as having their first child after years of infertility. No matter what the moment was, these moments made a huge impact in the lives of the anonymous contributors.

Several of these posts spoke about how finding a lucky penny turned an entire day around for someone.

Inspired by this, I started to collect my pennies in my cup holder. Now I collect pennies in a mug on my TV stand. Once I reach roughly 200 pennies, I will take a large handful and drive around town dropping lucky pennies everywhere I go.

Two dollars doesn’t seem like very much.

One penny, however, can change a person’s entire day.

I very rarely get to see the what happens to my pennies. However, there have been a few moments where I have gotten to share the joy of my pennies with those who received them. One of my favorite moments of all time was when a little girl grabbed my penny, squealed with delight, and ran up to her mom to show her the shiny new penny.

It didn’t matter if the girl thought the penny was lucky or not. It was special to her just the same.

Now imagine that 200 different people experienced a little more joy that day because they found a lucky penny. I know that it is wishful thinking to believe that they would all have a positive response to my happy little moment, but I like to believe that most, if not all, smiled a little bit brighter upon receiving my pennies.

Adding up all of the joyful moments my pennies brought is worth far more than the two dollars I had in my cup holder or mug.

Now life is not all dollars and pennies. You see, our lives are filled with numerous small gifts and moments, just like the pennies. However, we often fail to recognize the innate value to these small moments because we add them up at face value. A lifetime of Sunday Mass on the surface adds up to an obligation. A lifetime of Sunday Mass lived on in our hearts adds up to salvation.

We miss the value in the details because we focus on the big moments, the bigger picture, what everyone else seems to have.

Much like my two dollars in coins, we tend to add up our lives like they aren’t as great as they really are.

And so we start to do everything in our power to fill the empty space where we are supposed to put our heart and soul and story.

I think the reason why we are so desperate to find what we want in life is because we see what others have. We compare our lives to those around us. They seem happier, even in their tough times. They seem more put together, even in their lowest moments. They seem to be able to accomplish everything we ever wanted to do.

All because they have what we don’t have.

At least…that’s what we tell ourselves as we make plea bargains to God to set us free from the silence and struggle of our current lives.

I recently completed the last two figures of our upcoming publication. That experience might be the most eye-opening experience of my adult life. I was trying to get cholesterol to stain in the brain, but because I did not have the same kind of microscope as everyone else, I could not take the same images as everyone else in my field. I worked myself to the bone, blacking out twice in lab, desperate to have what I thought everyone else had.

This all lead to me breaking down to my advisor late one Friday afternoon. We were looking at my first attempt at the figure. It was terrible. I knew it was terrible. But because I had convinced myself that because I did not have what everyone else had that I would never be able to accomplish the mission my advisor set before me two years ago.

My advisor was pissed.

As he should have been

However, my advisor did not leave me without guidance. He reminded me that our camera, although different than everyone else’s, had the ability to take quantitative images that told an even more complete story. Our lab faced this problem several times over, and I needed to start acting like a member of our lab, not a member of our field.

“Felicity look!” my advisor pointed to the tiny dot of accumulation and the stats off to the side, “You have the accumulation. I can see it. You can see. But most people will not be able to see that. What you need to do is look at it in a new way.”

Despite our complaining, despite our apathy, despite our ignorance, Our Lord sees all that we have and all that we do. He can see it. We can see it. Most souls cannot see it.

What we need to do is look at what we have in a new way so that the love we received is visible to all we those we encounter.

God loves us a lot like how I leave pennies. At face value, the gifts He gives us may seem worthless. They show up unexpectedly, giving us a little bit of light to our day. But because we see them as so small, we tend to forget about the little moment we received that day.

But what if chose to do something about those little moments?

What if we chose to use our own unique circumstances to make something greater out of what seems too small to matter?

I took so many images of so many “failed” experiments. However, I had not taken in to account that I was in a unique lab with a unique camera. What I needed to do was utilize our unique camera to display what was really going on.

With a single click on photoshop, I had the most gorgeous heat maps I had ever seen. Not only did my images have better contrast than those of our competitors, but they told a story. Five year olds and cancer biologists alike could look at the images and tell the same story. No one else could make images quite like our lab.

All it took was looking at what I already had in a new way.

I know that this is particularly difficult to do. I’m just starting to learn what it means to look at life in a New Way, in the way that God intended for me. 

You see, it is hard to accept that our lives are not exactly as we want them to be in the moment. We start to compare ourselves. We start to doubt if we are meant to do what we always dreamt of. As this continues, we start to grow tired and bitter.

And just like I did that late Friday afternoon, we break down…and we lose sight of who we really are.

Yes the struggle is real, but we cannot let these moments of dryness and hardship change who we are. You, Dear Reader, are a beloved Child of God, worthy of a life beyond your wildest dreams. You, Dear Reader, are my brother or sister, and I love you for who God made you to be.

Last week I spoke about my current state of silence with Our Lord. It shook me a little to write, and yet that moment of vulnerability gave me the space to reflect on what it meant to receive gifts from Jesus.

I never saw the little moments I received for myself.

I always saw how God loved everyone else, especially when I took the time to pray for them individually.

I was so bitter about this. I spent hours walking around the lakes, driving around multiple cities, and sitting in chapels, begging God to explain why He wouldn’t explain the life He gave me. Then I remembered how many beautiful little moments I had with others after praying with and for them.

I remembered how happy they were, just like the little girl with the shiny new penny.

By learning to take my personal silence and fill it with Christ’s love for everyone around me, I started to see just how much God gave me. He gave me an unshakable faith that did not fear persecution. He gave me a heart that loved endlessly, even if it gets broken. He gave me souls who could receive my gifts for me. He gave me the strength to love in His name forever.

It was completely unexpected.

But then again, God takes the unexpected and turns it in to the only logical conclusion.

Dear Reader, I do not know what you have in your heart right now. I do not know your hardships on Earth or in your heart. What I do know, however, is that you have an incredible amount of small moments in your hearts, meant to be used for something greater.

Take a moment and think back to all of the little moments that made you smile.

Add your current situations, your heart, and your dreams to those moments.

Just as my 200 pennies added up to something worth far more than 2 dollars, so too will your life add up to something far greater than all of the big moments and struggles you are facing. Just as my heat map was greater than anything I ever imagined, so too will your life become greater than anything you ever dreamt of. Just as my prayers in the silence turned to great consolation, so too will your love turn your heart towards Heaven.

Look at your pennies in a new way.

Add them up in love.

And watch them work in the world. You will not be disappointed.