Shoes

When you see the word "SHOES," what's the first thing that comes to mind for you?

Photo courtesy of We Heart It

Photo courtesy of We Heart It

Perhaps a favorite pair, or, for some, an obsession. Perhaps memories of wearing some for better or worse. Perhaps stories or jokes or a number of other things... but this is what I think about:

I think back to when I was last at A.C. Green's mother's house. OK, the only time. I think about the pile of shoes sitting on the chair just inside the house from the garage, near the soda machine. And I think about how, before I knew the shoes sitting there were his, I picked one of them up because they were so huge, and the family member I was visiting laughing and telling me, "them are Jr.s" and about how I set the shoe back down really gingerly exactly where it was, so as not to disturb them. But before I set it down, I had measured it against my torso... the shoe was longer and nearly as wide.

That wasn't even two years ago.

But the other day, it came to mind again... and then...

It had me thinking, too, of the time I visited a friend, many years ago, on Christmas Day. I was in high school, and had invited him over to spend time with my family, and then we went and spent the rest the day with his mom and brother. Well, the brothers got in a kicking match, and my face, somehow, got in the way.

I'm thankful my nose wasn't broken.

I think of the shoes I wished so badly to wear for my MREL graduation that I couldn't wear because I was on medication that would bust my veins if I wore heels going up stairs, at the time. Because I didn't wear the shoes I wanted to, I didn't end up wearing the outfit I wanted to, either, because it would have looked pretty ridiculous without them...

Photo courtesy of We Heart It

I'm thankful I graduated, despite the shoe dilemma. I worked day and night, hard, to earn that degree, as well as my undergrad one. More than some might think I did...

I think of shoes other kids had when I was a kid that I really liked, but we couldn't afford, and I think of shoes I have tried on at stores that I really wanted to buy then didn't. I think of shoes in the context, in other words,  of stories associated with them.

But going back to A.C.'s shoes for a minute... how they were so huge they seemed big enough for a giant to wear and the awe I was in, not because of whose they were, but the title he holds, that of the Iron Man of Basketball, and it reminds me that awe belongs, not to MAN, but to GOD.

GOD is the One deserving of awe, honor, and glory. He should be reverenced. What HE thinks is what matters, even when things don't go our way. When life kicks us in the face, or things don't go as planned and our plans change accordingly, it is because God has a bigger plan than we could ever imagine.