“Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life. God’s Word is an indispensable weapon. In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long.” Ephesians 6:15-18a (MSG)
Anyone who knows me is well aware of my “shoe issue.” I smile as I type this. Smile because I know many of you are doing just that, thinking, “What shoes?”
Now I am chuckling a bit.
Shoes, they aren’t really my thing. I am more likely to be without than with when it comes to them. Oh, I have lots of them, tucked away in a magnificent antique box that I found, perfect with all its cubbies. Thing is, my shoes spend more time there than on my feet.
I do love some of them, how they are comfortable, I don’t buy them if they aren’t! No high heels for this girl!
I just don’t wear them at times.
How could I revel in the walking through the rain puddles if I did? Feel the texture of the earth beneath my feet? I feel so much with my feet!
Yet, I am learning that there are times for shoelessness and times for wearing them.
After all, going barefoot in the snow, as I have often, isn’t good for my health. Caring for my feet requires shodding them in the heat, guarding them from harm.
So, shoeless kind of days are less.
Today, Abba, woke me to this about wearing shoes.
But let me start at the beginning.
Yesterday I interacted with someone who put me on edge. The type of individual who raised a red flag for me as a sexual abuse survivor. He made me very uncomfortable as we rode the elevator, I found myself putting objects between us and guarding my answers to his questions.
Protecting myself, that’s what I was doing. 
Wearing my shoes.
Big Girl shoes.
Safe Girl shoes.
I wore these shoes with confidence.
I felt grounded in my present.
No more barefoot used and tossed away.
No
This is the pair of shoes I found myself wearing yesterday…
Fearless ones.
Beautiful to look upon as they were embellished in Christ like gemstones
Yet, well made that they not give.
I wasn’t afraid.
That’s big for me. I have had a lot of opportunities to fear these last few months, and I have found myself on the side of that fear way to often.
I have coward and shrunk back, cringed and claimed false blame…
Yesterday was a no more kind of day…
A shoe one.
I am allowed to guard my self,
I am secure in Christ and that means a world of difference, all the difference,
Yet, only if I shod myself in this truth,
I do.
With gratitude, in awe, and in praise.
Oh, I shall still enjoy strolling barefoot from time to time, splashing through the puddles..
Smiling as I do so, 
For these feet were made for walking and that’s just what they do!
Only, now they go with truth and love,
Now they walk with God.
Gotta go, it’s raining!
elsewherebygrace 