Shoes

Something I hear often and from a variety of places is, "What is wrong with people?"

I have asked that many times myself.

I have spent the better part of this morning pondering that question and I keep coming back to the same answer...

Shoes.

Our own shoes.

The ones we look for diligently and  that show our own sense of style and taste.

Shoes in which we are so comfortable we would never consider changing  them...

And because we love our shoes so much, we try to force everyone else into them ignoring the ill fit, the pinching and the resulting blisters.

Perhaps we should try to stand in shoes that belong to another before we try to get them into ours.

To walk with the gait of their challenges... if they are able to walk at all.

To try on toe shoes when we know that we are more like a clydesdale than a ballerina...

Maybe we ought not say what should be done to achieve their dreams when ours may have been achieved right out of the gate...

Or how to parent if we have no children...

Or what it's like to be hungry when we've lived a lifetime of gluttonous excess...

To say how to forgive when it's been seventy times seven for them...

To say where love is to be found when we haven't looked in nearly as many beds...

Maybe, just maybe, we ought to give up the idea that we are the appointed cobblers to the world.

The thinking that we know how it feels to go to bed each night praying that God would allow us to wake up and be anybody else than who we went to bed as...

Or how to change a heart that can never feel anything other than what it was born to feel...

It should also be mentioned that there will be people who actually TRY to fit into shoes that are not the right size.  I keep picturing Cinderella's stepsisters...  poor dears.

I don't think we ought to be encouraging or enabling that.

Sometimes people do outgrow their shoes and instead of seeing people wearing what we believe to be the wrong shoes, maybe we could help them find the new pair that they want... love... need.  The ones that will send them running swiftly in the direction of their calling...

Yes, I believe I know what is wrong with people...

Shoes.