Women’s Ministry Minute
May 26, 2020
With Nicole Kelly
As I got ready for bed the other night, I glanced down by the nightstand in our bedroom and noticed three pairs of shoes. Our 4-year-old son, Simon, had placed his shoes next to our shoes before he went to bed. I couldn’t help but smile as I looked at his small pair of shoes that were purposefully placed next to the shoes of his parents. His little shoes didn’t just randomly wind up next to ours, but rather they were intentionally placed there by the little hands and feet of a person who strives to be like us and by us every day. He depends on us to support him and guide him as he learns and grows each day. He intentionally seeks us out and relies on us to guide him on his daily path through life. The footprints that he leaves behind in this world will hopefully one day reflect the guidance, support, and relationship that we are able to build with him as his parents, which, in turn, we pray will ultimately guide him towards the path that leads him to choose to follow his Heavenly Father and accept Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior.
As I further reflected on the placement of my sons’ shoes, I recalled a time in my own childhood when I remember glancing at a poem about footprints in the hallway of my grandparent’s house that led me to think about the symbolic connection between footprints and our walk with God. The poem entitled, “Footprints,” by Carolyn Carty, can be summarized as follows: One night, a man had a dream that he was walking on a beach with the Lord. As he glanced down at different scenes from his life, he noticed that there was only one set of footprints on the path next to the scenes from the most difficult times in his life. Confused, the man questioned God and asked him why there were only one set of footprints on the path during times when he felt that he needed God the most in his life. God replied that during those times, the man was not alone, because those footprints belonged to God, who carried him through those difficult times in his life.
Perhaps it was a coincidence that the sight of my son’s shoes brought me back in time to the moment that I first read this poem at my grandparent’s house or perhaps it came to mind because I had been thinking about my grandmother frequently throughout this time in quarantine. About a month ago, my 90-year-old grandmother tested positive for COVID-19. She was ultimately hospitalized due to the complications she was experiencing both from this virus and from other underlying health conditions. At first, when I heard this news, I was fearful of what the outcome would be for her and I was doubtful that her prognosis would be anything but grim. Based upon everything that I had heard or read about COVID-19, I could easily be led to conclude that there was no hope for her to recover. Instead of relying on my own understanding, I knew I had to seek out God in prayer and ask for his healing powers and his grace to surround her and my family. My husband and I requested support and prayers from our friends and church family. We knew that we needed to rely on our support network and to ask God to guide us as a family through this difficult time. Thankfully, my grandmother was able to recover from her battle with COVID-19 and last week, she finally tested negative for infection from this virus. Praise the Lord!
As we, as a family, walked through this difficult time in our lives, I was encouraged daily by God’s word and by the following verses from scripture:
Philippians 4:13: I can do all this through Him who gives me strength.
Isiah 41:10: So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
1 Thessalonians 5:18: Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.
No matter what the circumstances are or the challenges that we face in life, God invites us to rely on Him as our strength and support. We need to strive to intentionally seek Him out and to rely on Him as our guide on our daily walk. We need to desire to follow Him, even when we may lack understanding or reason. We cannot allow ourselves to get swept up in fear or hysteria that can easily be perpetuated in the secular world, but instead fix our eyes on God, who wants us to rely not on our own understanding, but to look towards Him as our source of comfort, wisdom, and encouragement to continue on our journey. We need to invite God into our lives and allow Him to carry us on our daily walk so that we may learn to submit to Him in every circumstance that we encounter on our paths. We need to ask ourselves, do we get out of our own way and allow God to show us His way? Do we go out of our way to seek Him and his guidance in all circumstances? When we submit to God, we invite our Heavenly Father into our hearts and ask Him to enable us to give up our own control. We ask this of Him so that we may rely on Him to carry us through all circumstances that we encounter on our path. All we need to do is allow His footprints to lead us on our daily walk towards Him, and with Him, until we finally make it home.