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The Wrong Shoes
Shirley Keyser was so excited. She was about to leave her home in Oregon to go on a missions trip to Liberia, in West Africa. She had heard about an urgent need in the Bible college there, and she was going to fill that need. Shirley’s church family had promised to pray for her daily.
Eileen, a member of Shirley’s church in The Dalles, Oregon, came to Shirley with a box in her hands. She said to Shirley, “As I was praying for you this morning, God impressed me to get this from my attic and give it to you.” Eileen explained that she found it very interesting that God would cause her to think about this item, since it was something that she had stored away and not thought about for two years.
As Shirley opened the box, she found a pair of brown rubber sandals. Her heart fell. The sandals were not her size. Shirley had very narrow feet, and she had always had difficulty finding shoes that were just the right size. These were definitely the wrong shoes!
But Shirley knew that Eileen did not know about Shirley’s narrow feet. Not wanting to disappoint Eileen, she tried on the sandals. The sandals were too large all the way around. Shirley wondered if Eileen noticed, but Eileen did not say anything.
Shirley thanked Eileen and said she would take them. In her mind, Shirley felt that perhaps the sandals would be useful on the beach. But she also wondered why God would tell Eileen to give her shoes that were the wrong size. Didn’t God know what shoe size Shirley needed?
Finally it was time to leave for Liberia. Shirley and her husband got on a plane to fly to Monrovia, the capital city of Liberia. It was a very, very long flight. By the time the flight was over, Shirley’s feet and ankles had swollen. That was not unusual for Shirley, for her feet and ankles often swelled on a long trip, in the heat of summer, or if she didn’t get enough rest.
In the past, the swelling would eventually go down. But this time was different. Liberia is a very hot, humid country. Shirley’s feet did not return to normal size all year.
The rubber sandals Eileen had given her were the only shoes Shirley could wear while she was in Liberia. She couldn’t fit into any of the other shoes she had brought. She tried to buy new shoes in Liberia, but she could not find any that fit. Those rubber sandals became her teaching shoes, her casual shoes, her church shoes, and her everyday shoes.
God did know what shoe size Shirley had. And He knew what shoe size she would need in Liberia. He had not given her “the wrong shoes” after all. The shoes He gave her were just the right size.
The information from this story came from Mountain Movers and is used with permission from Assemblies of God World Missions.
©2005 The General Council of the Assemblies of God. All rights reserved. Permission granted to reproduce and adapt lesson components for exclusive use in the local church. Any other use requires written permission. |
