SHOES

James 1:2
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

SHOES

Our daughter has a house which was in the process of remodeling for quite a while, allowing us the privilege of helping her with the construction work a number of times. On one of those occasions, while she and I were carrying 8 and 10 foot treated 2x4s from the carport to the basement, we dropped one of them onto my foot. My daughter said, “Oh mom, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“No, no, I’m fine” I said. I’ve got shoes.” And I started to sing that old spiritual “I’ve got shoes, you’ve got shoes, all of God’s children got shoes. When I get to heaven goin’ to put on put on my shoes; goin’ to walk all over God’s heaven. She and I realized at the same time that some of God’s children really did have to wait until they got to heaven to “have shoes” to wear. It was very humbling for us both. I stood in the rubble of my daughter’s remodel thinking about how much we in this country, in this time in this country, have to be thankful for.

I also thought about how such deprivation and oppression drove those writers of the spirituals TO God, not away from Him. They weren’t saying, “If you’re really there how come we don’t have shoes? They were looking to what God had promised them; that they would see Him in heaven.

Then I remembered that I had learned the song in choir class in high school. I realized that these testimonies to faith can’t be sung in many of today’s high school music programs and was horrified to think that they could be lost from our heritage.

Even greater than the cultural aspects of that loss is the loss of an important part of our spiritual legacy; the story of a people whose faith in God carried them through unbelievably difficult times. They didn’t just survive. That faith even allowed them to pass on to us the knowledge of a loving God who wants to give us the same gifts of love and hope that He gave to them.