You-nique

For as long as I can remember I have loved pretty shoes. I remember being little and doing what every little girl does, putting on and prancing around in my mother’s high heels. After all, didn’t putting on your mother’s shoes mean you were a mom too? My recollection of my mom wearing high heels is an image of pure glamour. She was my movie star, she was my Doris Day. (Wow! I am dating myself now!) Her petite frame and small waist were accentuated by the added height of her heels. Somehow, those black heels meant she could do anything. I was so excited because the day finally came that I could fit perfectly in my mother’s shoes because this meant I could wear her high heels. The only problem was I was only eight.

Little girls could not wear high heels. It didn’t take me long to bypass my mother’s shoe size. My mother would take me to the Triangle shoe store where I would always be reminded, it seemed like every six weeks, how big my feet were.

By the time I was nine I was wearing a size 9 women’s shoe, which made getting a cute appropriate shoe out of the question. Everyone else was wearing Buster Brown shoes that had a cute little strap and a buckle on the side and I was wearing ugly boat loafers. Each time we would go back to the shoe store, I would admire all the cute shoes and dream of the day that I would finally be able to wear them because I would be old enough to fit into them. However, I’m still waiting for that day. As I grew so did my feet.

My problem is I wear a size 12 in a man’s shoe. I have heard every possible joke that can be made about big feet. I’ve been asked if I could water-ski without skis, or told that maybe I should just wear the boxes – they’d be cheaper. I even had a school teacher who told me my feet were too big for my shoes. He was right, but I wanted to wear clogs like everyone else. I wanted to fit in.

I have come to accept that I will never wear cute shoes, and that is okay with me. I can always dream and look on the outside chance that a store will carry a size 13 and a half wide in a women’s shoe, but it’s not very likely. The fact remains that I have big feet, and I am thankful. I wasn’t always thankful, but the lessons my feet have taught me are real.

As much as I wish I could wear a pair of pink high heels with some sparkle, I am not made to wear them. Why? Because it will make me believe I fit in. Somehow, it makes me believe the world will accept me more because I am wearing their standard. I don’t want to fit in with this world because when I try, I forget my real home is in heaven. When I try to adapt to this realm, I compromise my beliefs, my testimony, and even more importantly my relationship with God. I don’t belong here and this is not my home. Jesus calls me to be different, because how else will others see Him? If I act like the world, dress like the world and think like the world, what will draw people to desire a relationship with Him? How do we even think that is logical? Do we honestly think by following the world we can get people to follow Christ? If Jesus wasn’t accepted in his own hometown, why do we think we should be?

In 1 Peter 2:9 it tells us we are NOT supposed to let the world lure us in, but rather lure others to God’s goodness and bring His light to the darkness.

But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.

When we follow the sparkle of the world we lose God’s sparkle,  that which makes us, You-nique!