The Sinner's Silver

Mom was teaching my Sunday school class this week, so we had to come early. I always liked the weeks Mom taught, because while she was setting everything up, I could eat animal crackers from the snack cabinet—as many as I wanted. Church animal crackers were better than any other snack in the world, especially when I could dip them into my water cup to make them softer. I liked the tigers the best.

“Moriah, put those away, honey,” Mom said. “The other kids will be here soon.”

I checked to make sure she wasn’t looking, then took an extra handful and stuck them into my pocket to eat later. I closed the box and put it into the cabinet.

“Can we play with the coins today?” I asked Mom.

“The coins?” She put coloring pages and crayons out on the table.

“The coins,” I repeated. “From the cabinet. We always play with them.”

“Oh. Sure. Just give me a minute.”

I followed her across the room as she opened boxes of boring toys: blocks, dolls, pretend food. “Mom, when will the other kids be here?”

“Soon, honey. Why don’t you pick something to play with?”

“I want the coins,” I said.

The other teacher walked through the door and put her bag down. “Good morning!” she said. “Hello, Moriah. How are you doing today?”

“Good.” I grasped Mom’s sleeve and tugged it as she bent over. “Mom, where are the coins?”

She opened one of the high cabinets and pulled out the basket of coins. I knew they weren’t real—I wasn’t three-and-a-half anymore, and four-year-olds know what real coins look like. These were bigger, lighter, and shinier than real money. But I still wanted them.

I took the basket from her and sat down on the floor and started sorting them into piles. I put one in my pocket, then remembered that there were already animal crackers in my pocket. I ate a couple crackers to make space for the coin.

Another girl came over and sat down next to me, taking one of my coins out of its pile.

“Hey,” I said, grabbing it back. She let go, then reached into the basket for another coin. I snatched the basket out of her reach. “These are mine.”

“Moriah, share,” said Mom in her warning voice.

I huffed, stomping my boot against the ground, but I didn’t dare disobey. “Here,” I said, picking out the least shiny of the silver coins and shoving it toward the girl. “You can have this one.”

Two more kids walked over. I grabbed as many coins as I could fit in my hands, stood up, and walked to the other side of the room to get away from them. These were my coins—I had them first, and I shouldn’t have to share.

“Moriah, can I have one?” asked a boy.

“You can have one of the coins over there,” I said, pointing across the room to where the other kids were with the other half of the coins. “These ones are mine.”

“Moriah,” Mom said in her dangerous voice. “You need to share the coins or I’m going to take them away.”

It was so unfair, and I hated being bossed around, but I didn’t want to get in trouble. I gave the boy one coin. When I was sure no one was looking, I put the rest of the coins in my pocket and inside my boots. There were not many left now. These were my coins, and nobody was going to take them from me. Mom couldn’t tell me to share if she didn’t know I had any.

I stomped over to the table and sat down to color until story time. The other teacher was at the table, and she asked me questions while I picked out the sharpest crayons.

“Moriah, what’s your favorite animal?”

“Cows.” Of all my stuffed animals at home, Cow-Moo was the only one I would never throw at my brothers, only because he was my favorite and I wouldn’t want to hurt him.

“I love cows!” the other teacher said. “What about you, Ellie?”`

Ellie said she liked penguins.

“I saw penguins once!” I said.

“Really, Moriah?” asked the other teacher. “At the zoo?”

“No,” I said, trying to think of another place I could have seen a penguin.

“Did you go to Antarctica?”

“Um. I think so.”

“Really? I’ve never met anyone who’s been to Antarctica! Ellie, have you been to Antarctica?”

Ellie said no, and I held up my coloring page. “Done.”

“That’s beautiful, Moriah,” the other teacher said.

“Guess what time it is,” Mom said, then started singing: “Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere. Clean up, clean up, everybody do your share.”

I tossed two crayons into the bin in the middle of the table, threw my coloring page into the air to watch it float down to the floor, then skipped over to the Bible story corner. I was the first one there.

“Moriah, come put your coloring page into your cubby,” Mom called. But when I stood up, the other teacher had already picked it up for me. I leaned back and crossed my legs as I waited for everyone else to walk over.

The other teacher was telling the Bible story this week. She talked about Moses going up a mountain to talk to God and get the Ten Commandments. She explained what the Commandments were, and I studied Ellie’s shoes, which lit up whenever she moved her feet. I wanted light-up shoes.

“The next one is do not steal,” the teacher said, and I started listening. Stealing was one of the Ten Commandments? “It’s wrong to take something that isn’t yours.”

I thought about the coins hidden inside my pocket and stuffed into my shoes. I had taken them from the church. That meant they weren’t mine, which meant I had stolen them. Was God mad at me for stealing them? Would Mom be mad at me? I could imagine her frowning eyebrows, her disappointed voice, telling me to go to my room instead of eating lunch with the rest of the family. I couldn’t tell her about it.

The story ended, and we had to stand up to sing songs. One of the coins hurt my foot when I stood, so I put my weight on the other foot. If I took off my shoes and gave back the coins, it wouldn’t hurt anymore. But then everyone would know that I had stolen them, and I would get in trouble. What if I pretended I needed to go to the bathroom, then took off my shoes in there? But I wouldn’t have anywhere to put the coins once I got them out. If I carried them out of the bathroom, Mom would see, and if I left them on the floor, she would find them later and know it was me.

Before I knew it, song time was over, and we walked over to the green table for snack time. I pulled out one of the kid-sized chairs and looked around as Mom and the other teacher piled animal crackers on top of napkins in front of each kid, along with a small cup of water. I should have been excited to dip the animals into the water, but I wasn’t. I remembered the animal crackers I’d hidden in my pocket earlier, the ones I’d eaten without permission. Was God mad at me for that, too? Would God punish me more for stealing twice? I hadn’t listened carefully enough to the story to hear what God did to people who disobeyed the Ten Commandments. My stomach felt funny, and I didn’t want to eat anything. I dipped a tiger in the water and ate its head before dropping it back into the cup. “I’m done,” I said, pushing the napkin away and standing up.

“Already?” Mom asked me. “You barely touched your snack.”

“I’m not hungry,” I said. I stepped away from my chair and walked toward the other toys, trying to ignore the coins digging into my feet. I stopped walking only halfway. Could Mom hear the clicking of the coins against each other? She was talking to another kid about how sunny it was today, so probably she hadn’t noticed, but I was scared to take another step.

The other teacher called my name. “Moriah, do you want to start on the craft?”

 I took small, shuffling steps to the red craft table, humming to cover whatever sound the coins were making and trying to ignore the pain of plastic stabbing my feet. When I got to the craft table, I sat down right away and stopped humming.

I did the craft slowly, because if I finished too early, I would have to stand up and walk again. I colored the entire page, glued each of the Commandments onto the stone tablets, then added stickers on top. When I finished, the other teacher read all the Commandments to me again. “Do not steal,” she said, and the coins felt like rocks in my shoes.

When I got home after church, I kept my shoes on my feet until I was alone in my room with the door closed. I removed my boots, dumped them out, and counted the coins. I’d stolen seven. Then I opened my dresser and pulled out a little box, which was already filled with matching silver coins. I’d been stealing them for weeks. I had to get rid of these. If Mom found them, she would know I’d stolen from church. She would know I’d disobeyed the Ten Commandments.

As quickly as I could, I gathered all the coins into the box. Then I wrapped the box in a blanket and stuffed it into a backpack, which I zipped up and strapped on my back. I crept downstairs, sneaking past the kitchen where Mom was cooking lunch. When I reached the back door, I opened it.

“Moriah, where are you going?” Mom asked, appearing out of nowhere.

I froze. Did she know about the coins? How did she know? Had God talked to her like he talked to Moses on the mountain? My face felt hot.

“I’m just going outside.” I hoped she wouldn’t ask about the backpack.

“It’s almost lunch time,” she said.

“I know. I’ll come back inside soon.”

She didn’t say anything else, so I opened the door and walked outside. I’d forgotten to put my shoes back on, and I was still wearing socks. Mom didn’t let me wear socks outside without shoes. Was that against the Ten Commandments, too? I didn’t think it was, but I hadn’t listened carefully enough to remember. I took off my socks and left them next to the door, just in case. Then I ran over to the biggest tree on the edge of the yard.

My orange shovel was already sitting next to the tree because I’d used it as a pretend salad stirrer last time I played outside. The leaf-and-grass salad was still in a bucket, looking more shriveled and brown than it used to. Would my silver coins turn brown, too, if I left them outside for a few days? If they did, maybe Mom wouldn’t be able to tell that they were the same coins we had at church. I knelt on the ground, opened the backpack, reached through the blanket, and pulled out the box of coins. I used the shovel to dig a shallow hole in the dirt, then dumped the coins into it. I put the dirt over them, but I could still see one shiny edge, so I dumped the brown leaf-and-grass salad on top, too. I stepped back to inspect my work. I couldn’t see even a speck of silver.

Satisfied, I stood up, put the box back in my backpack, dropped the shovel, and went inside for lunch. My feet were no longer being poked by stolen plastic, and I hadn’t been caught. No one would ever know.

Except God. God knew everything. I couldn’t hide what I’d done from him. As this occurred to me, my stomach felt sick again.

Dad prayed before lunch, just like he always did, but I barely listened. I stared down at my plate, covered with spaghetti Mom had cut into small pieces. What would God do to punish me for stealing?

The prayer ended, and I ate one bite of spaghetti before my stomach started hurting again. “Dad?” I asked, “What happens if you disobey God?”

“Well, Moriah,” he said, pouring hot sauce on his spaghetti, “If you tell God you’re sorry, he forgives you.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Because of Jesus,” Mom said, smiling at me. “Jesus died on the cross to take away our sins. If you invite Jesus to live in your heart, he forgives you for all your sins and helps you not to sin again.”

I knew what forgiveness meant. If my brothers and I threw things at each other or hit each other, Mom would make us all apologize and say, “I forgive you,” and then we would stop being mad. Forgiveness meant the end of the fighting.

I ate lunch as quickly as I could, asked to be excused, then stood up and ran upstairs to my room. I knelt on the ground, the way I’d seen kids do in the books Mom read to me. I folded my hands and closed my eyes, just like I’d been taught. “Dear God,” I prayed, “Thank you for today and for church and for lunch and for Mom and Dad. And I’m sorry for stealing. Amen.”

I opened my eyes. Had it worked? I wasn’t sure, so I closed my eyes again. “Dear God,” I repeated, “I’m sorry for disobeying your Ten Commandments. Please forgive me. And please come live in my heart.” I started to cry. “Please come into my heart, Jesus. Please forgive me and live in my heart. I’m sorry for my sins. Mom said you’d live in my heart if I asked you to, and that’s what I’m doing. Please.” I wiped my eyes without unclasping my hands. My stomach didn’t hurt at all anymore. “Thank you, Jesus,” I whispered. “Thank you, thank you!” I tried to think of something else to say to God. “I love you, Lord. Amen.”

I stood up and opened my eyes, unfolding my hands to wipe away the rest of my tears. I yanked open the door and ran back downstairs. I wanted to tell Mom about everything—that I invited Jesus into my heart, that he forgave me, and even that I was sorry for stealing. I ran into the kitchen, where Mom was cleaning up after lunch. “Mom!” I said.

“What?” Mom asked, putting a plate into the dishwasher.

I tried to say more, but I couldn’t form the words, so I just tugged at her sleeve. She put away the last dish, dried her hands, then looked at me. “What is it, Moriah?”

I led her outside and over to the place where I’d buried the coins. Kneeling, I swept away the layer of leaf-and-grass salad, then brushed the loose soil with my hands. I pulled out three visible coins, then reached into the loose dirt with my hand to grab more. I handed them to her as I unearthed them, and she held them, watching me silently. I was afraid to look at her face. When I was sure I’d found them all, I stood and wiped my hands on my pants. Then, finally, I glanced up at Mom.

There was no frown in her eyebrows. She didn’t even look upset—she was smiling! “Do you want to bring these back to the church with me?” she asked.

I looked back at the ground, which no longer covered the coins I’d stolen. It looked healthy, more like the fresh soil in Mom’s garden than the dry, packed dirt that was there before. “Yes,” I said.