Humility's Shoes

The older I am getting, the more I find myself developing an affinity for shoes. Shoes of all kinds. I love them. In fact, I will shamefully admit that I purchased a new pair today. (Sorry it is fall, boot season is here). But that is just another example to display my depressing humanity in comparison to my friend Humility.
Humility wears light shoes. She never asks for new ones, never desires a shiny new label to match her brand new outfit. She is simple. Humility has holes in her shoes. She gets dirt between her toes and sings praises that her feet are still covered. That she still has soles beneath her thankful and giving feet.

She sweeps her porch daily and takes her shoes off when she steps on holy ground. She understands that the tasks or mistakes of yesterday hold no victory of who she is today. She dances to a rhythm that is only sung by heaven's choir. She speaks kindly of all she meets and digs her finger nails into the depths of despair and prays for hope in the midst of brokenness.

And at the end of the day, Humility takes off her shoes. Thanks her God for the day and rests her head on a small piece of the earth.
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Last week I was blessed with an opportunity to volunteer with an organization that reaches out to those that are homeless in Dallas. I would like to share with you some of that day and what I saw, what I felt, what I smelled, what I breathed---but most of all, I would like to share with you about how we are the same. So please, if you are willing read along.

I rode in the van with some of the team I was with. Also in the van were 4 other people that were homeless. After that van ride I stepped out into the streets with a heavy, burdened and convicted heart. Cynthia was a single mother with a daughter trying to finish college. She was homeless. She used to have her own company. Things fell through, she was evicted, she lost her house. There was something she said rested on my young mind.

"Most people will not even give you a chance. They will not look at you as a person. They will not consider that you are a person who had unfortunate circumstances, they look at you as stupid and irresponsible and think it was all your fault." She spoke with such an honest and tender demeanor.

As I walked onto the streets of South Dallas, I felt the Lord reminding me of how we are all the same. I am never too far away from losing my home. No one is. No matter how much money you have at one point, nothing is ever finite. Laugh at me now, scoff even---but as Don, another homeless man said, "the Lord is OK with people having His stuff, but He is not OK with stuff having a hold on his people."

Towards the later part of the morning, I walked back into a cluster of trees behind some houses. There were dirty pots and pans everywhere. The smell of sweat and things rotting. The smell of filth. Trash everywhere. My feet were sweating in my socks and I could feel a pool of sweat beads dropping down the small of my back. And I felt gross, that I needed a shower. Of course I would think that. I get excited when I go shopping. I think about all these new things that are on my horizon. It is never my thought in the day of where I am going to sleep at night. Shelter is not something I am concerned with. And then I met Renee.

She sat on an ice chest in the back of the woods behind some houses with a couple of other people. She had deep and large beautiful brown kind eyes. She wore a yellow bandanna to keep the hair off her face. I shook her hand and introduced myself. She lit up a cigarette and we talked about her life. She is a good woman with a heart full of gratitude. In the midst of everything, even though she and her husband lost their home she said to me, "but the Lord is good. We are blessed. And He provides." She looked at me with a humble heart and thanked me for being there. I could not help but let my heart be overwhelmed with the sincerity that this woman spoke with. That in the midst of my life, would I still be thankful if I were in her circumstance?

She told me I was brave for being there. But I told her I was not scared. She laughed at me and told me she would be terrified if she were in my shoes. We laughed and then I had to leave. But before I did, I shook hands with the lady sitting to her left. She went  by the name "Little Red." I shook Little Red's right hand. Her left hand was shooting heroine into the crease of her thigh. At that moment, the only thing I could breathe in was the smell of reality. This was it. Little Red smiled and laughed and asked us to pray for her and that one day she would leave her addictions and turn to Jesus. But not yet. I walked away that day fighting the truth that I had a place to go home to and the others I had met that day didn't.

At the foot of the cross we are all the same. We are all the same. At the foot of the cross we are all the same. Until the sun goes down each day, until I rest my head at night, I know…that we are all the same.

Some people might disagree with me, but we are never too far away. We are all held down by different addictions that lead to different outcomes in our lives. But we can only find shelter and refuge in One.

"The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe." Proverbs 18:10

The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.

The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.

...the righteous run to it and are safe.

I walked away that day trying to fit into Humility's shoes. It was not easy. Cynthia wore Humility's shoes. Renee wears Humility's shoes. But me?

We are all a work in progress, but good thing my human heart can yearn for a hope that is eternal.

At the foot of the cross we are all the same. We are all people in need of shelter.

Have you ever worn Humility's shoes?

-S