Pennies from Heaven

Several weeks ago a break-in occurred on our church property. Among the things that were stolen was a jug of pennies my daughter Beth had collected. When you lose a child it is sometimes difficult to give away things that remind you of her. Nonetheless, we felt peace when we gave those pennies to the youth of the church who in turn donated the pennies to the church building fund.
To say I was a little upset at the theft of those pennies would be an understatement. I thought of a number of things I wanted to do to the person or persons responsible. Ashamedly, most of those thoughts were not Godly – but you can find them in the Bible! You see, those pennies belonged to my daughter. Those pennies represented what we had worked on for years. Each day I would come home from work and call her to come get her pennies. The person who took those pennies stole from the youth, and from my Beth. However, instead of allowing me to stay angry, God reminded me that these pennies were not mine. They were not the students’. They were not Beth’s. They belonged to God. They were given to Him for His glory and He would receive the glory whether the pennies were used for the building or not. The Hattiesburg American published a letter I wrote that expressed my displeasure but also told the thief that I was praying for him. I asked that the pennies please be returned.
A week later there were no pennies. However, a member of my church pulled me aside and, along with his mother – who is not a member of the church – gave us $200. God had replaced our losses… but He wasn’t finished.
After lunch one day I was approached by a sweet lady who said she had something in her car for me. When she took me out to the car she showed me… a bucket of pennies. She had read in the paper about the theft and wanted to do something about it. The thought choked me with emotion but the story she had to tell about her pennies burst the dam.
These pennies came from a collection that belonged to her son who had passed away sometime back at the young age of 43. He would find pennies on the road and put them in a container back home. God had sent me a mother who had lost her child. This child, like mine, had saved pennies. This 43 year-old man’s name is Ford Shepherd. How coincidental – a shepherd revealed God’s glory at Christmas time.
When we first purchased the property our church building will one day occupy, there was a small out building on the land. After months of trying to decide what to call the building we have finally settled on a wonderful name – The “Shepherd’s Shed”. I hope Ford’s mother is as honored as I was the day she brought me the pennies.