Shoes of Life
Jamie yelled from the other side of the pond! HOUSTON!!!!!!!!!!!! WE HAVE A PROBLEM! GET
OVER HERE NOW! I could tell by my little sister’s tone that what just happened on
her side of the pond was not good. I
made a mad dash through the tall cat tail grass and around the corner to the far
side of the pond. As we both watched her
brand new leather shoe sinking to the bottom of Granny Bea and Papaw’s
catfish pond. Jamie was grasping wildly trying to grab it before it sank. Without hesitation I said, really? We just got those yesterday! Mom is going to have a cow. How did
you let that happen? She responded, “ Your really not helping the situation out at the moment. However, remember that bright idea of yours tying our shoes
the trendy way instead of the old fashion way. Now are you going to get to problem solving
mode or set her and preach to me the B attitudes of wish I... should of'.... could of ”
OK ok… So feeling a little bit like this was now my fault. I got down on my knees next to her. I told
Jamie to get up from where she was on her stomach desperately trying to fish
out the shoe.
“Don’t you dare let
me fall into that water! Ok?” Laying horizontally to the pond, and placing
trust into my little sister holding one arm and one leg and leveraging my body to
keep me from falling. Jamie said, “Good
grief, Tiffany I already stuck my hand into the water. Now get my shoe. After
changing and adapting ourselves several times we finally found the position
that gave us the advantage on the situation. I began
to stick my hand down as far as I could into the muddy yucky nasty man eating
catfish pond in hopes of “rescuing the shoe”.
Together after 15 minutes of carefully positioning ourselves we fished
out the brown leather shoe that decided to go Awah.
All of us face situation that we have to adapt to accomplish
our goals, and our challenges. With
those goals and challenges we must all embrace one key trait. Can you guess
what that trait is? You got it! Courage!
To exceed in life we must all embrace some level of courage.
We have to face the fear of failures, be willing to stick our hands in muddy waters
of life in hopes of pulling out that so called shoe or goal we are striving to
achieve.
Think about exercising courage as if you were playing a
game of Mother may I. Some of us are asked to take giant leaps of faith while
others get 10 baby steps. While some are just stinking lucky and get to leap
frog over the yucky stuff and never have to walk through it. Life is not fair by any
means.
Jeremiah 15:19 gives us a hidden treasure that we must take Courage to “extract
the precious from the worthless.” This is a great verse to mediate on when you
are in the process of going for a goal because you will have moments where you
have to overcome your frustrations and your own negative thoughts that will try
to paralyze you by saying it is just too muddy? What if you get hurt? Or even
worst what if you don't accomplish the goal at all? I
know I have personally battled those thoughts lately myself. The truth is in every situation
even those times we think doing these things that seem worthless and waste of
our time. We truly are shaping our lives and forming them into precious
moments, by just walking by faith and courage in the muddy waters of life in
hopes of victory and reaching that shoe!
Our shoes can be different things to us. Some of us are
reaching for that shoe of Success, while others are reaching for the Shoe of
happiness. Some of us are even reaching for that shoe to prove to the world they got what it takes. Jobs, Family, Marriage, Success we all have different shoes we are desperately trying to reach. No matter what
shoe you are reaching for in life. You will always have to face the muddy water where you have to reach for the shoe. It is in the moments we are reaching we must remember to push through the task that seem worthless to extract the precious.
So my two cent’s worth of the day is this: If we take a mindset
that would be a mindset of Courage nothing could stop us. We were all created
to be Exceptional. We have to have the courage to be different. Even when that different is uncomfortable
because when we get uncomfortable and push ourselves into the unclear muddy
waters we rely on our faith to carry us and operating in that type of faith is
when we extract the precious.
