Lessons Learned from a Pair of Shoes

I don't struggle financially, but I definitely do not have a massive amount of money to burn. Few people my age and in my place on the career totem pole don't have a lot of extra money. And then something rather painful happened: I wore through my work shoes. I say "painful", because it was, literally, painful.

Suddenly another really big, and rather urgent, financial drain loomed on the immediate horizon: buying shoes. 

Now, unless you go to Walmart and buy flimsily constructed shoes from the $30-rack, shoes are expensive. If you walk 5+ miles a day at your job, then you can't get the cheap shoes. Unless you want your knees to hate you for eternity, then you can.
I like my knees too much to let them hate me, so I determined to go to the shoe store at my earliest opportunity, bite the bullet and fork the money over. This last Thursday evening I sat down and crunched some numbers to see what I would have left once I paid for groceries and rent on top of shoes. The prospects looked bleak, but I knew I needed to do something, or I would have to have knee replacements by the time I was thirty.
Before you guys think I'm over-exaggerating the state of my shoes, let me explain: I have had these shoes for close to 2 years. I have had my current job for ten months, and for ten hours every day, four days a week, I have walked all over the hospital. I am pretty sure I walk seven miles on average at work - rough guesstimate, I really have no idea how far. But for simplicity's sake, let's say 7 miles a day. If my calculations are correct (which is a very big if), I have walked 1120 miles over the past 10 months, and that doesn't count all of the walking I do to and from work, and in the grocery store after work, etc.
You get the point; it's a really really big number.
The soles of my shoes were really really thin, and the canvas on top was tearing.

I sat running my fingers through my hair, attempting to work through this problem without going bald. Finally I sat back and did the only sensible thing I'd done all evening: I prayed. Lord, you know my finances. So please take care of me and don't let me worry too much over this. I know you'll provide because you always have.
Then I got up and went back to work.
Friday evening I headed over to my sister, Anna's, with my sister Dani. We sat around chatting as dinner was cooking, and I mentioned needing new shoes, and how I was going to have to go get some the next evening.
Anna had shoes. She had bought them for work, gotten married, had kids, and now could no longer fit them. They were my size, not really worn at all; for some reason she still had them, and she gave them to me. Just like that the prayer was answered. And no money was spent. Here I was expecting God to give me extra funds to cover the expense, to fill in the loss that I sustained. But He didn't let me get to the part where loss is mentioned. He gave me shoes with no expense to myself. He also gave me something greater: People who loved me enough to hear a need in what I said and meet the need. Not because they felt obligated to, but because they cared. For me.

I came away that night doubly blessed, and somewhat stunned, trying to process the vast amount of grace I had received that night.
In Matthew 6 Jesus says, "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,  yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?"


God literally clothed me that day; he gave me a pair of shoes. Seemingly inconsequential, I know, but the insignificance of the act makes it that much more amazing. God cared enough to give me, little tiny me rattling around in my very scatter-brained existence, a pair of shoes. Somehow, giving me a pair of shoes fit into his grand scheme of redeeming the world (and me!). 
He cares that much. We don't serve a little God; we serve a great, all-powerful, all-knowing God, who is powerful enough to bend low and put shoes on our feet, clothes on our backs, and food on our table. He cares, not only for our great spiritual need, but for our little needs and concerns as well. And that is comforting.

1500 Words, and Counting!

Yes, people, I have actually made PROGRESS! 

I am one of those people who like to make an extensive plan when I do anything, but especially when I write. I like to work systematically through the problem in my mind (in this case, how do I get the idea in my head onto a page?) before I tackle it.
I've done quite a bit of planning. I've written very detailed outlines on several parts of my story and I plan to follow them religiously. I have a map drawn up, and I know how I am going to use that map. I have characters worked out (mostly), I know their names and what they look like (some of them). I know what they like to do and what is important to them. I have a plan.

And I just threw half of that plan out the window.

There are two reasons I've done this:

First, sometimes my creativity doesn't follow my plan.

And that's ok. When working on a fictitious piece of work you sometimes have to abandon your carefully thought-out plan to follow your creative intuition. Then you proof-read it, and if it turns out to be crap, you throw it out. You don't have to hold onto that burst of creativity you had that one time. 

You can throw it in the trash. Heck, you can throw your plan in the trash if it's no good. You don't have to religiously follow a plan (though it helps to sort out your ideas), and you don't have to cling so tightly to your bursts of creativity. You sometimes have to let your work grow and evolve, and that often means putting those ideas and plans to death.

Second, I've read too much Russian literature.

Russian literature doesn't produce very good protagonists, but it creates some very interesting antagonists. The reason for this, I am convinced, is because Russian authors in the late 17th century had a very stark picture of humanity to work with. Their society, at least as portrayed by these classic authors, was riddled with depression, oppression, and poverty. These authors wrote about their society in such a way that even the prosperous were cast in a grimy hue. 

Humanity in all of its sinful debasement comes to life under the skillful pen of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Such a vivid and varied presentation gives greater insight to the human condition and so influences my fashioning of characters.

It also has brought about the realization that, when I write, I do not want to create characters out of my ideals. I want them to be human. I want them to sin, to fall down, to look grimy and weak, but always with redemption in view. I don't want my villains to only show arrogant pride in their wickedness but show the varying degrees of villain-hood. I want to show that the weak, apathetic villain is as much of a villain as the cocky, pretentious one.

So I've started a (very) rough draft, and - you guessed it! - I started with a contrast in villainy. I abandoned my original plan and did something else. Only time will tell whether or not it too will need to be abandoned, or completely renovated, but it's a start. 

Reflections on Vacation: Why Taking a Break is Important

My sister, Dani, and I planned a very intricate, people-filled vacation this spring. It has not quite been a week since we got back. We took a train up to the Chicago area to visit an old high school friend on a Saturday. After visiting with him through Monday, we were picked up by our grandmother, who took us back to her home in Michigan after giving us the grand tour of Chicago.
We spent the next three days eating, talking, sleeping, and resting. Then we packed up, picked up, and took the train back home. All in all, a very lovely time.

While packing for this trip I had to sit down and seriously think about what I wanted to take. I don't mean clothes, shoes, or makeup - though figuring those out did take up a good portion of my time packing.
I had to figure out what I was going to do while I was away. A part of me thought, It's vacation. I will take my books, my computer... I wanted to write. I wanted to use my time off milking my creative juices for all it was worth. I spend on average 45 minutes to an hour a week writing. Sometimes I am able to burn through a couple of hours writing in a week.

That's really slow.

I don't like that pace. It's slow, hard, sometimes achingly boring. I want to sit for hours and hours and days on end and perfect my work. I want to lose myself so wholly in my work that it becomes what I've always wanted it to be - my essence.
And then I look at the clock and I have to go to bed because my shift starts at 6am in the morning. Or I have to do some studying for my counseling certification. Or my nephew asks me to come over. Or his mama asks me. Or my boyfriend needs to spend time with me. Or I have spent too much time sitting on the couch and need to go for a run.
Or there's a wedding, or a shower, or a birth to celebrate. And I haven't even factored in my work schedule.
I can come up with an endless list of things I need to devote my time to; all of them essential to living a joyful life.
Maybe I'm not called to devote all of my time to writing right now. Maybe there are other things God wants me to spend my time doing; good things, healthy things, things that honor Him and grow me. And maybe that is ok.

But then the golden opportunity sneaks up on me: I have an entire week with no work schedule, hundreds of miles away from anyone who would ordinarily ask for my time, and limited cell phone service.
Sounds just about perfect, right?

There's only one thing: I'm not going there alone, and I am not staying there alone. I did not take this week to go on a writing retreat. I took this week to visit my grandmother, my cousins, and to build some really great memories with my sister (they were pretty awesome memories too).
I took this week to take a break from the demands and struggles of my every-day life, to come away from the noise and business, and simply be.


I didn't take my computer. I didn't look at a word processor once during my entire stay. I took books for the train ride. I took a lot of books. I didn't read half of them, but I read. I read, and I talked, and I slept, and I ate (a lot), and I simply was.
And it was perfect.

Now I have come back with a head-full of ambitions, thoughts, and desires. I have come back to real, every-day life, and I realize what a treasure my crazy, overbooked schedule is. I realize that I wouldn't change a single minute of the life I'm living now, even if it means I don't get to spend all of my time playing with words and ideas. I realize that God wants me here, in this moment, for right now.
My heart's desire, and one of the greatest pleasures I have, is writing. But I have a greater desire, and that is to love God and love others. Right now that means I only spend a couple of hours a week writing. And that's ok.

Sometimes you just need to take a break from your life to realize how wonderfully abundant your life is.

I'm back, and my head is full of so many ideas. I want to write, write, write. But I reign my heart in and I take one day at a time, one hour at a time, one window of opportunity at a time. A gift is wasted, not when it isn't exploited, but only when it is not used.