Just a penny is a treasure

I like listening to Andrew Peterson’s music. It is not a style of music most would pick for me. I told my friend Dano that when I listen to Andrew Peterson’s music I want to hand craft a guitar from a tree I cut down in the backyard of the cabin I own on the side of a mountain overlooking a clear stream in which I spend my evenings fly fishing; when I’m not playing my guitar, of course. The fact that I don’t play the guitar very well, don’t own a cabin anywhere and have only fly fished a couple of times doesn’t matter.

Sometimes I get in one of those funks where I feel as if I am worth nothing. You’ve been there too I know. We all have been there. If you say you haven’t … well, you’re lying (I don’t know how to be less blunt). I’ve been there some lately and I’m coming out of it – I always seem to. There is a song that has helped me see the other side, written by Andy Peterson.

Jesus tells how important we are to him in a story. It goes something like this (as recorded by the good doctor):

"Or imagine a woman who has ten coins and loses one. Won't she light a lamp and scour the house, looking in every nook and cranny until she finds it? And when she finds it you can be sure she'll call her friends and neighbors: 'Celebrate with me! I found my lost coin!' Count on it—that's the kind of party God's angels throw every time one lost soul turns to God."

Luke 15:8-10

Andrew Peterson puts that idea into a song called Loose Change – about a penny:

I'd give you all of me to know what you were thinking
And if I had one wish I'd wish I wasn't sinking here
Drowning in this well
Oh can't you tell

That I can't pick myself up off the ground
I've been face down
And pushed aside
Well, you know I'd rather just turn tail and run
Than lie here in the sun
And watch you pass me by
'Cause I ain't worth a dime

But if only I could stand up straight
I wouldn't have to lie and wait
I could up and roll away
And never be ignored
I've got a feeling that I'm something more
Than just a piece of copper ore
Turning green and looking for
The reason I was born

Well, I've been around since 1974
In banks and bottom drawers
On railroad ties
I've been passed around and cast aside
And skipped and flipped and flattened wide
Spun around and thrown away and left alone to lie

But I heard about a penny found
Lying underneath the couch
By a woman who was kneeling down
Looking for some change
Then the woman danced around
Called her friends all over town
Told 'em what was lost is found
It's another penny saved

So I find that all this time
Beneath the surface, I could shine
Like all the gold a king and queen could measure
See, even just a penny is a treasure

The man knows how to use words and turn phrases. And a spiritual truth (that “a penny like me, is a treasure”) makes more sense.