Pennies for the Poor

The book with its raggedy edges and taped-in-pages was open again. 
A by-now-familiar boy with big, sad eyes looked back at us.

We could tell he was poor.  Probably hungry, too, and he had no shirt.

The pain of being an orphan was written all over his face.

The book was held by another small boy with chocolate brown eyes.

Only his shirt looks new and his belly is rounded and full.

Determination to understand the magnitude of 

the picture scrunches up his face.

“Why doesn’t he have nice clothes?” he asks.

And, “Does he have a bed?”

An ache took root in my heart as I tried to explain to my son

that not all children in this world are like him. 

He has both a daddy and a mommy. 

He has food and clothes. 

And warmth from the cold.

 Some children don’t have any of that.

We turn the page.  

Another poor child and this one is hungry.

“Why don’t they buy food?”

They have no money.  

No piggy banks with penny collections.

No dollar bills crowding the shoulders of the copper.

No aunt who sends money for every birthday.

The days went by.  I thought he had forgotten 

the poverty and our prayers for the poor.

But he hadn’t.

He came to me with serious brown eyes and said,

“I have lots of money in my fish. 

I want to share my money with the poor children.

I want to get them some shirts and trousers and food and toys.”

I smiled my approval.

The crinkles (he calls them rainbows) showed up by my eyes.

But he is only four. 

He doesn’t know what he is saying, does he?

We let it drop for the moment. Time passes.  Days pass. 

But he doesn’t forget. 

He came back with the same serious eyes and the same idea saying,

“I want to share my money with the poor children.”

I looked at my husband.

It is a look that says I can hardly handle the overwhelming emotions

of a mom whose child is being this compassionate.

No one warned me about these types of feelings when they told me about parenthood.

I watched them empty the fish-shaped bank onto the living room floor.

Father and son, with heads together, counted out piles of pennies.
They laid the bills beside them.

“How much would you like to share with the poor children?” my husband asked him.

Our son looked at the piles.

Six dollars of coins mounded richly in front of him in copper hills.

In his mind it might as well have been millions.

“Hold it!  I have lots of money!”

I offered him a Zip-Lock baggie and he started sharing.

“This is for the poor boy,” he said.

And he scooped pennies into the bag. 

Three generous handfuls.

And then he stopped.

“Is it fine if I keep some for myself?” he asked with hesitation,

almost expecting to be told to return a dry fish to the stand in his room.

“You can keep as much as you want,” we told him, gently.

He nodded, grateful to think he wouldn’t be the poor boy in the end.

To his handfuls of pennies he added three bills. 

He doesn’t know increments. 

He added the largest ones.

The parents looked at each other.  

Our melty-heart puddles showed up in our eyes.

We wouldn't have needed to voice our questions, 
for we were thinking the same things:

“Do we monitor what he gives? 

He doesn’t know what he’s doing.

If he were twelve, he would know that a rumpled 20 is worth more than the crisp 5. 

Then we could let it entirely up to his discretion.”

But he isn’t twelve. 

Twelve is the age he thinks is pure adulthood and to him seems a lifetime away. 

He is only four and generously sharing roughly 
half of his money with poor children. 

Only he's dividing it by the amount of pieces; not by value.

We've never done this thing of being parents to little boys who

 break out their change so they can give it away.

We don’t know the right protocol. 

 Do you let him give blindly without any kind of direction?

We switch a couple of bills around, praying we're doing the right thing.

When he is 12, he can do it again.

He gets a second bag. 

“This is for the mommy and the daddy,” he says.

He dumps in two more generous handfuls of pennies. 

“I’m going to buy food and clothes for the poor people.  Is that kind?”

The warmth of goodwill is flowing through him.

He adds a few more pennies for good measure.

I know.  He’s probably perfectly normal. 

But in this moment, to us,

he’s the most generous, incredible child we have ever known. 

My eyes are wet. 

He clenched his two baggies in his fists.

The deed is done and he is smiling.

We looked at his baggies of coins and smiled with him, 

knowing that we would need to quietly supplement his offering. 

We have a gift card we can use on the portion of the receipt he can’t afford. 

He can hand that to the cashier along with his money 

and never know the difference. 

This gift is his.

I opened a catalog from CAM that has pages full of opportunities for giving. 

I thought he might like to choose how he earmarks the cash, 

but I could have skipped the catalog;

he already knows what he wants.

“A shirt and trousers, and socks and shoes for the boy.  

Won’t he be happy to get that?”

His dreamy smile is cherubic, thinking about a poor boy wearing clothing he 

purchased with his very own money. 

Can this be the same child who this very week asked me

982 questions I couldn’t answer about space shuttles and astronauts?

Then I was afraid I was losing my sanity. 

Now I’m so overcome with love, admiration, gratitude, 

and the “I’m so proud of you” feelings

 that it takes my breath away.

We tucked him in for his nap.  

He was still smiling as he hugged his special blanket.

“Do you think it makes God happy when I share my money?”

“Yes, Sweet Boy.  Very happy.”

I was confident in that.

I knew it was true.  And, if so, it is also true that

God was smiling down on my boy

like he smiles down on his grown-up children when they show compassion.

He takes our puny offerings clutched in sweaty hands and

multiplies them like he did the loaves and fishes, or

like the parents did with pennies in Zip-Locks and a gift card.

We go away smiling, feeling like we did our part in saving the world.

Like three child-sized handfuls of pennies,

our gifts must appear small to him who has it all.

But with his father-like love and approval

which evokes the “I’m proud of you” feelings,

he smiles and says, "Well done, Child" and knows he’ll supplement our gift

until it makes a difference.

We’ll think it is from us until That Day when heaven is reality

and we find we were in partnership

with the Bank of Heaven.

It makes me look at the two baggies 

of pennies on my kitchen counter waiting to be multiplied

and it inspires me to give what I have, both
physical blessings and talent, no matter how small my offering is.

Because being in a partnership with the Bank of Heaven 

is an investment opportunity I don't want to miss out on.