Arthritis creeps into my feet and for a long week and counting they hurt incessantly. Trying to keep up with active little girls and domestic chores requires a lot of time on one's feet, and my feet aren't up to the challenge.
I try anyway -- to walk the good walk, fight the good fight, smile through the pain, and remember every moment how very blessed I am.
Because, you see, I have feet. Some people don't. I have medicine. Some people don't. I have a wonderful husband, and some mothers with chronic conditions do not.
At the end of a long week, after a grocery shopping excursion that leaves my feet feeling like they're on fire, I sit in a chair and put them up, because I just can't walk anymore.
My husband makes dinner, bathes our 4 year-old, and because he's not already busy enough, serves me strawberry lemonade.
After I hug them goodnight from my chair, our little girls in footed pajamas are tucked into their beds, kissed, and prayed over.
Jonathan returns and says, "Hey, don't you have a little inflatable foot soaking tub?"
Ten minutes later, he has arranged my chair, crafted a platform out of a Rubbermaid storage bin, draped a towel across the platform, and filled my (now inflated) foot tub with warm water and lavender scented Epsom salts.
My feet slip into warm water and when they emerge, the pain is all but gone.
---
Jesus once did something similar. He filled bins and knelt to wash His followers feet, and I bet that when their feet emerged from the water; when their eyes met His eyes of love and grace, their pain (both of the flesh and the heart) was gone.
In this life, I may not win the chronic pain battle. People we love will die. But I think often of the day when I will look up and meet His eyes, and my pain (physical and emotional) will be gone. In that Holy presence, all peace, all hope, all love, all grace, all things good will soak through to the heart of His children and I can't even imagine what that will feel like.
I will sit at the feet of the King, and I can't wait for that day!
"And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; their shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things are passed away."
{Revelation 21:4}
{Revelation 21:4}
