Lots of Shoes

There may be a lot of things my children didn't appreciate about me when they all lived under my roof ... things like making them clean their rooms or take out the trash or mow the lawn. Or consulting the "board of directors" (a couple of my closest friends) concerning some form of discipline or punishment that needed to be enacted if they misbehaved. They may have had some pretty choice words to say about their dear old mama when they were angry with me. But there is one thing about me that all three of my kids were (and still are, for that matter) grateful for beyond measure ... my skill as an editor. I was wondering a couple of days ago just how many essays, book reports, thesis papers, sermons, screen plays, scholarship applications, or a host of other written materials I've proofed and edited for my three children ... the most recent being a paper for my film boy, Bradley. A paper for one of his film classes ... a paper about the film Forrest Gump, of course.

It appears to me rather "coincidental" that within a few days of reading Brad's paper, I found myself unable to sleep last night and skipping through the channels on television trying to find something to watch. Guess what movie was on? No, really. Go ahead and guess. Well ... Forrest Gump, of course. I settled onto my couch with an ice pack on my shoulder and two sleepy hounds vying for the spot closest to me, thinking I would watch dear old Forrest until I fell asleep. Instead, I found myself awake through the 2 1/2 hours of the movie ... the dogs slept, though (and they woke well rested this morning, I might add).

It's more than a bit fascinating to me that there are certain films that no matter how many times I view them, it seems that something new or different strikes me each time ... and Forrest Gump is definitely one of those kinds of films. Perhaps it's because walking has become such a big part of my life over the last year and a half that I was immediately struck last night by a statement Forrest makes in the opening of the film. He's talking with a nurse on the bench while he waits for the bus and he says, "I bet them's comfortable shoes ... Mama always says there's an awful lot you can tell about a person by their shoes. Where they're going. Where they've been. I've worn lots of shoes."

Those lines delivered with such thought and emotion by Tom Hanks have been on my mind all day. All day, I've been thinking about my own shoes and the story they tell to others about where I've been. I, like Forrest, have worn lots of shoes. Shoes that walked through a happy childhood and a rocky adolescence. Shoes that partied their way through my college years. Shoes that spent a summer in Mexico. Shoes that stumbled and fell in the canyons of a painful marriage and a devastating divorce. Shoes that climbed the mountain of single parenthood. Shoes that finally, after 40 years, slowly trudged along the road that led to Calvary and the foot of the cross. Yep, I've worn lots of shoes alright.

I was thinking, though, as I was driving home tonight about the shoes I'm wearing now ... about where those shoes are taking me. As much as the shoes I've worn in the past have helped to make me who I am, the shoes I'm wearing now will help to make me who I will become. I recognize that I am at a place in life where I've never been ... I'm too old to be young, and I'm too young to be old. "Where are you taking me?" I asked aloud in the car as I drove. "Where am I going? I know where I've been, Lord ... I just don't know where I'm going."

There's another famous Forrest quote when Jenny shows him the clippings she has saved from his cross-country run. Another quote that's been stuck in my mind today ... "I ran a long way, for a long time." Tears filled my eyes as I turned into my driveway and watched the garage door as it slowly lifted. "I've been running a long way, Lord," I said, "a long, long way, for a long, long time." And as I walked into my house and was greeted by two happy-to-see-me hounds, I understood the lesson God was trying to teach me. He knows every pair of shoes I've ever worn, and He knows every pair I will ever wear. He knows where I've been, and He knows where I'm going. He knows when I want to run, and He knows where to find me when I do and bring me home.