Finding hope in the small things

Lexcee Reel was facing a heart-wrenching divorce, financial trouble and extreme stress, until a simple reminder showed her that true joy is priceless

Irummaged under couch pillows and ransacked my closet, picking through coat pockets and madly shaking all my old purses and wallets. I was looking for pennies, nickels, quarters—anything that would help me make it to the end of the week. At this point in my life, I no longer believed in luck, but I still hoped that God would have mercy on me and at least lighten my load. It sure was feeling heavy— almost unbearable.

A clueless girl in her twenties, I was in the midst of a separation, with an infant son and a 5-year-old daughter. I was trying to give her some normalcy as her parents prepared for divorce.

Life had flipped on us. One year, I was having baby showers and taking vacations in the mountains of Tennessee; the next, I was scrounging around my small, two-bedroom apartment collecting loose change to buy food and gas. At the snap of a finger, I found myself dumped from middle-class smack dab into the bottom bracket of poverty, and it was humbling.

I’ll never forget the jubilation of finding one penny during my hunt, then two, then fifteen, and then twenty-four, twenty-five, twentysix. Every time I found one, it was as if I had won the lottery. Looking back now, I see that it was somewhat ironic because I had scoffed at pennies at one point in my life. They had so little value to me. If it wasn’t silver coins or crisp dollars, I was uninterested in collecting or keeping them. I would casually throw them in those red penny trays that read, “Give a penny or take a penny.”

My mantra was, “Here. You can have them all.” On the off chance that there was no penny tray and I had to keep them, they would remain forever in the change portion of my wallet, and I shuffled them around in search of nickels, dimes, and quarters to pay cashiers.

I sat in my bedroom that night and sorted all the change from my hour-long quest. I took paper coin rolls and got to work shoving my thumb in one end and stuffing pennies in the other end. My daughter wanted to help. Her naive eyes saw it as something fun to do while sitting in the middle of the floor with Mama.

If she only knew how tough times really were. It made me wonder if my daddy ever felt the same when I used to help him make those rolls of pennies back when I was little.

I smiled and made jokes with her while we packed our pennies. Her brother joyfully bounced up and down in his bouncer. They had no idea how many nights I would cry with my face buried in the pillows, wondering how I would keep a roof over their heads, lights on in the house, and food on the table.

I remember those days like they were yesterday.

I remember the shame I felt walking into the neighborhood convenience store to pay for my gas in rolls of coins, feeling as if people holding debit cards and dollars were judging me. I remember the embarrassment of having to pay for seven dollars’ worth of groceries in change; the impatient shoppers behind me in line had no idea I was deathly afraid that the total and tax would be one cent over, and I would have to suffer the humiliation of putting something back.

I remember those days, but I don’t remember them with sadness. I remember them intentionally because I promised myself and God that if I were ever to escape the pains of poverty that I would never forget the value of a penny.

I’ve kept that promise too. My daughter and I were walking just the other day, and I found two pennies lying useless and unloved in a parking lot. From the dirt and scuff marks on them, I could tell

“I’ll never forget the jubilation of finding one penny…every time I found one, it was as if I had won

the lottery”

that they had been trampled a hundred times before I rescued them. I stuffed them in my tennis shoes because my workout pants didn’t have pockets. As I slid them in the corners of my shoe, I whispered, “Thank you for the increase.” That’s been my ritual whenever I find coins on sidewalks and in parking lots since I made my promise.

I never thought I’d see the day

I’d be so grateful to find pennies, but those scavenger hunts in my apartment taught me two things I will never forget: Tough times mold resilience, and one can always find immense value in little things if we are brave enough, bold enough and humble enough to look.

—Lexcee Reel