THE PENNY, By Joyce Meyer and Deborah Bedford

This is Joyce Meyer's first novel, even though she's written a ton of books. It was written with Deborah Bedford, who at one time wrote some "Harlequinn SuperRomance" books, but now writes inspirational fiction exclusively.

THE PENNY is the bittersweet tale of Jenny Blake, a young girl growing up in the 1950's. She lives with an abusive father, a fearful and passive mother, and a sister who is chomping at the bit to leave the troubled home. One afternoon, Jenny finds a penny on the street, and when she picks it up, a chain of events occurs, which she attributes to the penny. Immediately after that occurrence, she is offered a job working for Miss Shaw, who everyone in the area thinks is a strange and mysterious lady. Jenny's best friend is Aurelia, a black young girl, in who's friendship she finds much joy, confusion, pain and finally, hope.

I felt sad as I read Jenny's story. It's told from her point of view, so we get to see how she understands the things she endures. Her defense mechanism is to act like she doesn't care. She learns to hide her feelings - to keep secrets. Her sister, on the other hand, left home the first chance she got. But when she returned for a visit, she told Jenny that even though she had left, she really couldn't escape it. It still affected the rest of her life.

Also mixed in this story is the Civil Rights struggle. Jenny knew her father was a very hateful man, but she never dreamed that others could feel the same way towards black people as he did. When Jenny and Aurelia become friends, Jenny is forced to keep it a secret. But their friendship becomes one of the things that changes Jenny's life the most.

The story is based on true events from Joyce Meyer's life. She has spoken in the past of the abuse she endured as a child, but more recently, of how her father eventually accepted Christ as his savior and how she had the privilege of being the one to baptize him.

One of the themes in this book is having grace on others. When you meet someone, chances are, you don't know their whole story. I heard someone say once that many times we look at people and think that they have a long way to go - but we should always remember that we don't know how far they've come already. I saw this truth in Miss Shaw's character. Jenny's character reminded me that angry people quite often are hurting. The main thing I took away from the story was that many things happen in our lives, and we need to hold on to Jesus through the good times as well as the bad.