The Lost Coin
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| Silver Dollar Coin |
On September 8, 2001, which was ten years ago today, Margaret Elizabeth Griffin and William Roche Murphy were married. It was a joyous day, with one exception. Margaret’s beloved grandfather, Papa T was not there and it brought tears to Margaret’s eyes that he could not be present.
For good luck a bride is supposed to wear something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. Before Papa T’s death, he was always known to carry a silver dollar coin in his pocket. The smooth silver piece was placed in his pocket every morning and emptied it out on his dresser every evening. No one knew exactly when this started, but the coin became a symbol of my dad, so for Margaret’s borrowed item on her wedding day she asked if she could use “the coin” to represent his presence.
Knowing the significance of the coin, Margaret’s friends taped it to the bottom of her shoe, so it wouldn’t get lost and when she changed clothes to leave the wedding they carefully took the coin out and handed it to me. Being uncertain of what I might do with it at that time of night, I handed it to my husband for safekeeping.
The day after the wedding out-of-town guests were going to be stopping by the house, so we scurried around to tidy the place up. When all the commotion had subsided, I thought, I had better get the coin back to mother knowing how much she cherished it. However, it was nowhere to be found.
Surely it had been put into a drawer during the hubbub of cleaning up, but it wasn’t in a drawer in the living room, the den, the kitchen, the bedrooms, the bathrooms or even the laundry room. It must have been thrown away in the confusion of the morning, but after sifting through coffee grounds, paper towels, and other rubbish, still no coin had been uncovered.
Where could it be? I went back through all of the drawers and cabinets for days, knowing that at some point Mother would ask for it. The days turned into weeks and I began trying to figure out how I would tell my family that the treasured coin was gone. I even considered going to a coin shop to see if I could purchase another one to replace it just so I would not have to confess my negligence. Finally I determined that I would just have to come clean with my family.
Several months after my admission of guilt, my husband was in the rental shop where he had gotten the tux for the wedding and just happened to ask if anyone had left a silver coin in a pocket of a coat. A grin appeared on the face of the store clerk as she opened the cash register drawer and pulled out the silver dollar saying, “We knew someone would be back for this someday.”
We had searched high and low for that coin not because it had monetary value, but because of the sentimental value that it held for our family and when the lost coin had been found there was great rejoicing in our family. In the Bible we are told that if something like finding a coin brings us great joy, we can’t imagine how much the angels rejoice over one lost sinner who repents.
After spending so much time and effort hunting for the treasure, I wondered what else I put emphasis on in my life that is considered important from an earthly standpoint, but is of little eternal value. Do I spend more hours wondering what I am going to eat or what I am going to wear or how I am going to spend my afternoon or do I care more about the thing that is most important to God—lost souls? What changes do I need to make to have a heart like God’s to see what is really important?
Luke 15:8-10 “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
By the Way--Happy Anniversary Margaret and Billy!
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