Store shelves lay empty. Barren, skewed and aimless, like Old Mother Hubbard’s Cupboards. Or like the day after Black Friday.
How was I supposed to buy shoes for my five-year-old daughter when I couldn’t find any anywhere? Worse yet, my fifteen-year-old had suggested she needs a heavier winter coat.
She has many, but most were for fashion, not function; for looks, not purpose. And like my mom always ays, “Pretty is as pretty does”.
I could feel panic set in, like a water table of anxiety rising in my spirit.
After all, snow was forecasted and Christmas was coming.
And no, we don’t NEED fancy, black leather shoes for my five-year-old who has a huge box filled with tennis shoes to ballet slippers, tap shoes to boots, to soccer cleats.
But, God knew my heart. He knew and saw down into the crevasses of my wants.
He knew my own fears and insecurities, how I didn’t want my children walzing into a Candle Light Christmas Eve service wearing a dress and well-worn sneakers.
“I am a recovering shop-a-holic”. There, I said it.
My husband had been working until he retired recently, full pension.
But, retirement was not the six digits we were used to, and the carelessness with which I shopped earlier has to be more intentional.
Worse yet, I looked EVERYWHERE for size 13, black, leather shoes. It wasn’t like I was being picky.
Our four-year-old, an Irish Twin, would take our five-year-old’s last year shoes. I wasn’t looking for matching shoes, like I usually do.
I just wanted Christmas to be special. And well, Christmas pictures to not look strange.
I looked online. $45.00. And that was before taxes and shipping, before the secret total flashed bright upon my screen. And I wasn’t payng $50.00 for this child that sprouts up like a bean.
Shoes she would likely only wear a few times.
I just wasn’t doing it.
Yet, as I traveled, store to store to store, all the isles were empty. No shoes. Little milk, creamer, or even basic necessities for that matter.
What was happening?
Was the abundance and surplus turning into a lack? Was China holding back? Ships being held along the seashore, like I had been told in the past? Were they not allowed to bring goods into shore?
Would this be a new norm? Lack? Need? Want? A low supply of what we feel we cannot live without?
But, I had seen my God move mountains in our favor in the past! I have seen Him take what seems like it can’t be shaken and turn things in our favor.
I have witnessed first hand, the God of all Creation, simply say one word as He gives freely and abundantly to HIS children.
How much more will He take care of us? How much more will we see His provision, even in a season of lack?
I was tapped out. Standing on the end of my shopping journey for black, leather shoes. My joyous daughter would just have to where sneakers or boots with her sparkling dress on Christmas.
After all, God says He will provide for “all our needs, according to His riches and glory”. He didn’t say He would give us all our WANTS. Did He?
I came to Him, defeated. My mirror of glutton-type of relationship with money, seemed to be held before me.
Why did I waste, spend so much previously? Why had I not been thinking anything of the reality that one day we might see lack? Experience a loss in our community? Or a want for everyday, ordinary, common supplies?
My heart repented and my head was resigned to make due if my children don’t match exactly.
“Give thanks”, our Pastor had said earlier. Give thanks for what you have, instead of looking greedily to get further.
Just then, we dropped off my older daughter at her friends. This was the daughter that mentioned a heavy jacket.
Then, just before going home, we drove by the house my husband and I lived in when we had just two young children.
It was small. The whole house could fit in our two rooms of our home, today.
Yet, I was grateful for our own dishwasher, a washer and dryer, and three bedrooms that were so small, each could fit in our walk-in closets in the current home we live in.
I walked in pure humility then. We had nothing then.
Yet, I was estatic to have my small family, our own space, and the clear reminder that He would need to provide then.
Not in mountainous proportions, but in just what we needed, as we walked the stairway to a larger home next, and then finally bought this big house with five acres of property, we now love and adore.
My heart had been content with little, and I wonder if that’s why He has given us much?
My soul had been thankful, when our whole house was just a few feet across. So, why do I doubt Him now?
Perhaps gratittude really does attract better things. And greed, whether you make six digits or just a few dollars, really does quench His Spirit.
And so, I cling to a heart full of gratitude as we left my daughter’s friends. My husband driving.
My mind steps away from the rising panick as I set in to intentionally give “thanks”.
Then, umbenounced to me, my husband blurts out, “How about if we drive by one more store? You can run in and check for those black, leather shoes, and I will stay in the car with the children.”
I almost said, “No, it’s o.k.” I was working on gratitude, wasn’t I?
But, I am learning, my husband is a great navigator. And when I sit back in the passenger’s seat and trust him, great things happen, time and time again.
So, I submit and ride along, not hopeful or expectant. Not conditioning God’s affection for me, on whether I find shoes.
I just walk obediently into something like my eigth store, to do what I have to, without any faith invested in it.
The store was packed, pre-Christmas. I went to the far back. Empty isles. Cleared out, as if a bandit had taken everything.
I scanned the empty shelves…
Until there, sitting alone, as if God had put a spotlight on them….A pair of size 13, black, leather shoes.
I buckled over. Almost cried. Tears were coming, yet I couldn’t justify them in such a circumstances…
After all, kids were dying of starvation around the planet.
Yet, here I was, holding back the floodgates over one pair of black, leather shoes?
It wasn’t the shoes so much that made me tremble in joy and gratitude, it was the promise that, “GOD SEES”…”God had seen ME”.. He knew my wants, and not just my needs…
And He provided, at the eleventh hour, when I least expected it.
Maybe even now, at Christmas, He wasn’t far off. He did care for something so selfish and unnecessary. He too wanted my heart filled as we took Christmas photos that Sunday.
And better yet, my older daughter who was at her friends, got home that night.
She was wearing a strange coat. A thick, fur lined, black coat that looked perfect for winter.
“Where did you get that coat?” I asked her.
My friend’s mom gave it to me.
“What?” I didn’t understand. “Did you ask for it?”
“No”, she just gave it to me.
She went on to tell me…
Randomly, out of the blue, her friend’s mom handed her a thick coat. She told her, “I hope you can use it”. It didn’t fit her right. She knew nothing of my daughter’s request, for a warmer coat for winter.
God does provide. He meets our needs, but also hears our wants.
He is near and faithful, not because we deserve or earn what we have…
But because He is a magnet to gratefulness and contentment.
And we are blessed when we look to Him, in perfect peace, knowing He owns the cattle on a thousand hills…
If the lily’s is dressed in brilliance and the sparrow is cared for, though insignificant…How much more will He look after and care for you and me?
Greed poisons His purposes, but faith and gratitude attract His goodness.
Which one will we walk in? Especially when there is lack?
