God Shoes

Her name is Sarah Verissimo. Formerly known as Sarah Eastwick. She was my roommate in my second year of college, and at the time of this story, she was eagerly anticipating her upcoming wedding (in which I was to be a bridesmaid).

It was the summer of '06, about 3 months before the happy day, and she had finally decided on the color of her bridesmaid dresses: brown. Well, I shouldn't say brown; it sounds so boring and ugly. The particular shade we were going to be wearing was Truffle.

The dresses were quite beautiful, actually, even though I don't really like or wear that color. She gave me a link to the website where I could view the dress, and I promptly called the store and ordered one in my size.

The next order of business was, of course, finding shoes that matched the dress. Brown shoes. Brown dress shoes. Nice looking, fairly stylish, reasonably priced, cute brown heels to go with my dress. I did not for one second think this was going to be an easy task.

The shoes not only had to fit the criteria, but they had to fit my feet as well. And I have tiny feet. If you go into most shoe stores, you will find that their women's shoes start in size 6. I have the "blessing" of walking around on feet that are size 5. And narrow too.

But I was determined that it would happen: I would find the shoes. I would look everywhere, and I would look all summer long, until I had the shoes.

So one fine day, I said a prayer, and my mom and myself headed out of town to the big city to begin this daunting quest of finding "the shoes." We decided to start at a large Payless Shoes store, because they actually carry a reasonable amount of selection in my size (most of the time). And their prices agree with my wallet (most of the time).

So I perused the size 5 section. Moved on size 5.5, because if I had to, I could fit a size 5.5 well enough. And then I started looking at size 6 (now I'm getting desperate). I tried to convince myself that it was just one day, that I only had to wear the shoes for one day, so if they were a size too big, oh well.

I saw a surprising amount of brown shoes, but after consulting the sales ladies, none of us were convinced that any of those shoes would be suitable for a wedding.

But then, I saw them. There they were, sitting in the size 6 section. They were cute. They were brown. And they looked really comfy, despite the fact that they were sporting a 3.5 inch heel. So I took them out, I tried them on........but they just didn't work. They were a size 6, and I am a size 5, and a narrow size 5 at that.

There was no way I would be able to put up with these shoes for an hour, much less a day. So I handed them to the lady, and she gave me one last sliver of hope: she would call other stores to see if they had them in my size.

After what seemed like forever [it was probably only 10 minutes, but still, 10 minutes is a long time waiting for a sales lady to get back to you about a pair of perfect shoes] she gave me the news: there was one pair of these heels in my size, in One store, out of THREE provinces.

THREE PROVINCES.

And those shoes were at a Payless in St. Vital Mall. ST. VITAL MALL. St. Vital Mall is my province; in the very city I was in, and not a 15-minute drive from where I was standing. She asked if she should call them to set the shoes aside, and I nearly gave her the "are you crazy?!" look. Of course she should reserve the shoes!

What's even better, is that if that particular store doesn't have something you want, but another store does, they will print out a receipt that gives you $5 off any purchase. So I grabbed my receipt and my mom and we rushed to the car and flew over to the mall.

When we got there I practically thrust my receipt into the sales lady's face and blurted out in an excited panic, "you have shoes for me, my name is Jenene!" She retrieved those beloved shoes, I paid for them, and when I got home, I was floating.

I had found the most perfect shoes on my very first attempt, and they were rare too. Only God could have set that up. They were my God shoes. I couldn't wait to tell Sarah.

Except I didn't get the chance to tell her the whole story. I told her what the shoes were like and she spent about an hour and a half looking for those same shoes online at the Payless stores in the States (did I mention she is from California?). I very quickly found out that Payless stores are not the same from Canada to the US.

I also found out, only then, that she wanted all of us to have the same shoes. I did not know this, otherwise I wouldn't have gone on that escapade in the first place. And since they didn't have those shoes in the States, she informed me that I would have to purchase a different pair online, from a US store, so that all of the bridesmaids' shoes would match.

If she sounds mean or cold, she isn't. She had every right to want our shoes to be the same. She is the bride, not to mention my dear friend, so of course I complied. I was still keenly disappointed though. I informed my mom, we made another call to that bridal store in the States and requested that they add the Sarah-selected shoes to my order.

So what about my God shoes? Well, I didn't need them any more. I am very careful with my money, and I try not to make purchases on a whim, especially if I have no need for it. And I didn't need those shoes anymore. The shoes I ordered were going to be dyed to match my dress, and besides, they were a good $10 more than the first ones I had purchased (and then there was shipping, plus exchange).

I needed the money from my first pair of shoes in order to pay for the second pair of shoes. Which meant I had to return them. I had to go back to the store and return my God shoes. I think I almost cried.

I mean, it was an absolute miracle that I had gotten them, and I really loved them, and I wondered why God had gone through all of that trouble if I was going to end up returning them. It didn't make any sense. But return them I did, with a heavy heart.

About a week later (or so), my mom called me into the kitchen because she needed help "reading something." When I got the kitchen, I saw the real reason why she had called me: sitting on the table was a glass vase filled with beautiful flowers (red and white daisies), and a large bag. I looked in the bag and saw a box. I pulled the box out of the bag and set it on the table. I lifted the lid of the box, and behold: the shoes.

Not a similar pair; not look-alikes. The very shoes that I had had in my possession only a few days before. You see, I was (and still am) dating a wonderful man named Art, and he loves me very much. I had told him my sad tale of the shoes that were never meant to be, and he decided he would try to make it otherwise.

And this story is even more incredible than the first.

Art secretly conspired with my mom to buy the shoes for me, but of course, my mom had to be the one to carry out this plan, because Art lives far away. So one day,while she was at work, my mom made a call to that Payless in the mall. She asked them if these shoes were there, and if they could set them aside.

The lady she spoke with went back and forth from the phone to the size 5 section, grabbing various shoes and describing them, asking my mom if those were the shoes she wanted. My mom said no over and over, and finally the lady told her that the shoes must have been bought by someone else, because they were not there.

So my mom hung up, thinking that was the end of that. *Keep in mind that my mom did not give her name, her number, or where she was calling from. She simply made the call, with no success.*

About 20 minutes later, someone answered the phone where my mom works, and then proceeded to search the entire office, asking everybody if they had called a Payless shoes, because there was a lady on the line looking for the one who had called her earlier. NO NAME, NO NUMBER, NO NAME OF WHERE MY MOM WORKED. But she called back anyway.

So my mom heard that this sales lady from Payless was on the line, and she took the call. The lady informed her that the shoes she had been looking for had been sitting in a different section, among shoes of a completely different size. Which is why they could not be found earlier, and it is also why they had not been purchased by anybody else.

So my mom asked the lady to put them aside (again). But my mom was still faced with one more obstacle: she works in our town, not in the city. Getting there to purchase them was going to be a problem.

So then she called my dad. My dad is an insurance salesman, so he goes all over when he works. He could be anywhere at any given time. But my mom called him on his cell phone and sheepishly asked him if it would be possible for him to go to the mall and pick up some shoes. She waited, hoping against hope.

My dad's answer? "Oh, I'm already in the mall, so I'll go on over right now." (I mean, seriously, how amazing is that?) So with the combined efforts of my boyfriend, my mom, my dad, the sales lady at Payless, and whoever answered the phone that day at my mom's work (not to mention all the coincidences that could only be called divine intervention), my perfect God shoes were given to me to keep.

More important than the shoes, I have an incredible story to go along with my shoes, and I remember every time I look at them. I always knew that God loves me and takes care of me and meets my every need. But I forget that He often meets many of my wants as well. I didn't need the shoes, but He loves me SO MUCH, that He came up with an incredible plan just so that I could have them anyway.

I am going to keep these shoes forever, as a reminder to everyone that we have a Father in heaven Who loves us extravagantly, and loves to bless us richly and abundantly, above all that we could ask or imagine.



P.S. To thank my boyfriend, I bought a dress to match the shoes, so I could wear them on a fancy date with him. The gesture was not lost on him. ;)

Diet Day 22

I ate 3 cookies today. And one yesterday. And I had ice cream on Saturday. So I guess we can say that the diet is off. I tried to tell myself that it wouldn't be that much, it wouldn't be that bad. But if I keep this up, I WILL be back where I started. And I really don't want that.

So, I'm going to try again. I'm going to aim for one dessert a week. And since I most definitely had that today, no more desserts or sweets for me until at least next Monday. Wish me luck! (again)

Unexpected Strength

*I found Holly's blog through the Christian Women Online blogging community, and this blog just spoke to me. This is for all of us who are grieving our community's most recent loss.*

I’ve seen strength in subtle ways -

A Daddy’s arm draped ’round his girl - transparent skin stretched over sinew and muscle and veins - latent power wrapped in protective fashion around pink-clothed vulnerability.

I’ve observed the hands of the young Mennonite girl who waits on me at the checkout counter. Fair of face and slight of frame, the hands don’t match the girl. They are weathered and toughened by hard work, even at a tender age. Strong hands - hands that are capable and willing. They hoe the earth, knead the bread, hang the laundry - yet soothe the wailing baby sister.

I find strength in the grip of an elderly woman on Sunday morning. Where I expect withered flesh I find a firm handshake. A glance in her twinkling blue eyes confirms my perception of her inner drive.


I’ve seen strength in powerful ways -

She’s held in her wheelchair by velcro straps; sipping iced coffee through a straw as we meet. I’m to be her night shift helper. A quadriplegic by way of a car accident - she can move nothing below her neck by her own volition. But she’s got spunk - and a boyfriend, and a job as a radio DJ; and she loves Jesus. She holds on to Him with a ferocious strength.

An older woman sits in the intensive care waiting room, week after week, sleeping at night on the hard couch with a plastic pillow. Scarcely eating, she waits with strength to see if her husband will survive. He’s not even a good man, he’s an angry man. But she prays for his healing and for a few more years. She doesn’t even know how to be unfaithful, to wish for anything different. She won’t leave his side.


The preemie with transparent skin lies flat on her back, eyes covered by a miniscule mask and electrodes mostly covering her body. Her chest rises and falls, and minute by minute she grows and develops. Born too early, her fight for life displays raw power. Tenacity clothed in tubes. “She’s a fighter.”

At 29, she was the freshly widowed mother of 14 month old twin daughters and a 4 year old girl. I drove her home from the hospital. All she held in her hands was the plastic bag containing his clothes, wallet, and Bible. She nursed her babies, listened to his voice on the answering machine, then planned her beloved’s funeral. I saw God give her strength as she grieved, as her little girl grieved, and as they moved through the hard stages of mourning. His strength, her strength, were inseparably intermingled as a decade passed, and as hope was restored.


Usually, unexpectedly, His strength is made clear in our weakness. May we recognize today and every day, where all of our strength comes from.

II Corinthians 12:9, 10 “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Diet Day 12

Well this diet thing hasn't been as awful as I thought it would be. I mean I'm still tempted to eat what I'm not supposed to, and there have been a couple of times where I was really pushing the limits of how much sugar I should be taking in.

But I am so determined to eat healthier and get my body back on track, that I've been pretty good at "just saying no." Like a drug campaign. Sugar is a drug! Maybe that's what I should start thinking of sugar as: a drug.

My mom is also very supportive, so that helps. We went to a bulk foods store that we really like, and I stocked up on healthy snacks, like unseasoned mixed nuts, and another slightly seasoned snack with pretzels in it. They're good, they're good for me, and at least if I'm trying to fill myself up with healthy snacks, I won't be so tempted to have the unhealthy ones, because I'm full.

But my biggest motivating factor is knowing the slippery slope of "just one." If I allow myself to have just one sugary snack today, then I'll allow myself just one more tomorrow. And the day after. And then it will become "just two" in one day. And before I know it, I'm back to eating the same way I was before, and I'll be back to having the same problems I had before. And it is NOT worth it.

This diet is making me realize more and more that the battle isn't against the physical realm, but the spiritual realm. The battle is in my mind. I can avoid those things that are bad for me when I renew my mind, and choose to think differently about them.

If I see any and all forms of sugar as my friend, then I will allow myself to ingest those foods, and I'll be doing myself a lot of harm without even realizing it. It took 22 years of not really caring what I ate and how much of it I ate before it came back to bite me in the butt.

It's the same thing with sin. We allow ourselves to be okay with sin, and we let it go on and on, and then one day we wake up and look at our spiritual life, and it's all sick and damaged. We hardly know how we got there, because we think, "well, yes, I'm not perfect, I sin here and there, but it's really not that bad. I don't have to worry about the little ones."

Let me tell you, a little bit here and there adds up to a lot when you give it time. Thankfully our Father is so loving and forgiving, and He is quick to heal a broken spiritual life when we let Him. Of course, that healing can only last if we nurture it and not allow ourselves to go back to the way we were before.

Which I guess is why I can't really call this a diet, because diets are usually temporary. If I want to be healthy again and stay healthy, I have to keep this up for the rest of my life. Which might not be so difficult if there weren't 2 boxes of free donuts sitting on the kitchen table here at the office. I can see them from my desk.

Oh, and Ruth, thank you for the cinnamon bun from your garage sale. I'm sure they were great, but I had to turn that one down.

Diet: Day 5

Can you say mood swings and hyper-sensitivity?! It never really occurred to me that when you make drastic changes to your diet, it has noticeable effects on your hormones as well. Noticeable to me at least.

I'm trying not to be grumpy on the outside, I'm not snapping at people or crying in public or anything. But on the inside, I'm feeling a bit down, and yesterday, it showed.

Although, yesterday could easily have been just "one of those days;" diet or no diet. You know those days. A bunch of little things start building up over a period of time, until one day, it isn't little anymore. It's big and it overwhelms you, and you find yourself in the middle of a mini-meltdown.

I made a horrible error at work yesterday. Not bad enough that my job is on the line, but my supervisor was not pleased with me, and it's going to be quite an inconvenience for those who have to undo what I did.

It was a mistake, a misunderstanding, but it's still my fault, and it definitely didn't help to reinforce any positive feelings about myself. So that left me feeling a little raw.

I also really, really miss Art right now. I always miss Art, but some days are easier and some days are harder. And these days are feeling almost impossible. On days like these, I feel like screaming to God, "What were you thinking?! Is this funny to You?? You're writing my love story, and you decide to torture me by having the man I love live 2000 miles away? Thanks a lot."

Plus, Art and I have been busy these past couple of weeks, so we don't often get the chance to talk properly. 15 minutes here, 20 minutes there, in between our busyness. And I'm glad that we at least make that time to connect, if it means that we get to connect a little everyday.

I also know that when we're married, we won't sit and have long conversations everyday, because we won't need to. We'll have the advantage of living in the same house and sleeping in the same bed. We'll be doing life together. But right now, Art and I aren't even in the same country. Not exactly easy on the morale.

It's times like these where, instead of turning to God, I would turn to food. And you can bet that food wouldn't be vegetables. Normally, I would just allow myself to pig out on something with absolutely no nutritional value. But I think the fact that I'm on a diet actually forces me to turn to God and not to food. God knew what He was doing when He showed me that I needed to change my eating habits.

It's not just my physical health that He cares about. This opens a door to greater spiritual health. The beginning is always the toughest because I'm in cleansing mode. I'm getting rid of all that gunk that isn't supposed to be there, but I'm so used it being there that getting rid of it isn't joyful; it's painful. I barely recognize myself as I'm getting rid of the old and introducing the new, all at the same time.

But I'm holding onto the promise that what He is doing is a new thing (Is. 43:19), and it's a good thing (Phil. 1:6), and He won't leave me hanging. He said He would bring it to completion. And He will.

Diet Time

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, believe it or not, I am on a diet. Now, if you think about it, technically everybody is on a diet. If all you eat is greasy take-out, then you're on a diet of greasy food. Your diet is whatever your eating habits are. And I am simply attempting to change my diet.

Let me be very clear: I am NOT trying to lose weight, as is usually the goal of a diet. I simply want develop better eating habits. It's not really a drastic food change. I have decided to cut out all unnecessary sugars (meaning sweets and desserts) and I would also like to cut WAY back on unhealthy food (read: take-out/chips and snacks like that).

Not that I live a life of fast food and desserts, but even what I have been consuming of those foods has been too much for my body. It's telling me in no uncertain terms that I need to develop better eating habits. So I'm going to try.

Today is Day 2 and so far I'm doing fine, but man, is it ever tempting to convince yourself, "just one bite of something sweet, just one tiny treat." And of course, once you tell yourself that you can't have a certain type of food, suddenly you want it like you've never wanted anything before.

I'm also trying to get it into my head that this isn't a temporary thing. Diets shouldn't be for a short period of time, because once you are off the diet, you go back to the way you were eating and you completely reverse whatever good your diet did. No, if you're going to go on a diet, it should be for life. I really want to eat better. I need to eat better.

Of course, the other problem with trying to stay away from unhealthy, unnatural sugars is that I'm trying to distract myself by filling up on other things. Like salty foods. There's a reason why they call it junk food, but it's so hard to give it up! Now I truly understand what it means to take it one day at a time.

But hey, I'm not in this alone. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Phil. 4:13