Shoe Shopping

My friend Karen and I went shoe shopping yesterday. We visited seven shoe vendors in two and a half hours. If we'd been making a reservation for the trip and they had asked, "Business or pleasure?", we would have answered, "Business." Our shoe shopping venture held not a trace of the frivolous. We were on a mission for a particular type of shoe - Zumba shoes. Zumba is a sort of Latin dancing aerobic exercise in which the participant does a lot of jumping, twisting, squatting, toe tapping, gyrating, twirling and pivoting. The shoes we already owned were fine for the jumping, squatting, toe tapping and gyrating, but the tread on the bottoms was making it hard to do the twisting, twirling and pivoting. We needed shoes with a smooth rubber sole and a circular slipperier rubber "pivot" point near the toe of the shoe.

Now, here's the thing. One of us wears a 6.5 shoe, and the other one wears an 11. One person's foot is like a ski, and the other's looks more like a piece of knobby pie (broad at the toe and narrow at the heel). Yet we were determined to find "the" shoe that would satisfy both our needs, both of our tastes, and our completely different feet.

First of all, I'd like to complain (can you imagine that?!). The Zumba teacher, who is 22 and built like Barbie, showed Karen her shoes, which she claimed to have bought at Academy Sports. Another woman in the class showed me her shoes (different from the teacher's) which she claimed to have bought at Rack Room Shoes. Well, Karen and I immediately headed for Academy, the teacher's choice. After all, our goal is to look like her when we've Zumba -ed for several months! Academy had a large array of dance/cheerleader/training shoes, none of which looked anything like our teacher's. Nevertheless, we tried on several pairs. I should say I tried on several pairs since evidently there are only two women in the world who wear an 11 so the shoe stores don't carry them. Academy had one pair in an 11. It was black with pink stitching. Karen tried it on and liked it okay. So I found it in my size and tried it on. For some reason (I know it couldn't possibly be my short, fat feet with appropriately fat ankles above them), the tongue of the shoe dug into the front of my ankle, making it quite uncomfortable. The tongue of Karen's shoe, on the other hand, was half way down the top of her foot!

Feeling betrayed in some way, we left there and headed straight for Rack Room Shoes. Rather than hunting on our own, I decided to ask someone where the Zumba shoes were located. I noticed a tall blond in tennis shoes talking to a customer about some shoes. I waited patiently, probably twenty seconds or so, until she seemed to finish the conversation. Then I walked up to her and boldly said, "We were told we could get shoes for Zumba here. Where would they be?" The woman proceeded to tell us that the store had a pitiable number of athletic shoes for women, and led us to a display that contained maybe four shoes. We dutifully looked at them. Then Karen said, " There are some women's athletic shoes over there" and she pointed back where we'd come from. The salesperson walked with us to that area and replied, "Well, yes, this row is women's, but then the next row starts the men's. They just don't have many for women." Did you notice the "they" in that sentence? She wasn't even a sales person - I had asked a fellow customer to help us! Actually, Rack Room ended up having quite a few women's athletic shoes, but not the ones we were looking for. By this time I was feeling very disappointed.

We hit five other stores and never found either of the shoes the women had recommended. So we ended up with no shoes (yet!). But, I got a spiritual lesson out of it.

Sometimes we share a spiritual lesson with people and expect them to get the same excitement or inspiration or conviction from it that we experienced. I'm very guilty of this. The truth is, though, that people have different spiritual sizes and shapes and needs. We all have to have the main things (like soles, shoelaces, "pivot" points) - that Jesus is God's Son; He came to earth to live the life of a human being and then to die on the cross for our sins; He arose from the grave; He's coming again some day. But some of the other things (like the tongue on the shoe or the width of the heel) have to take in consideration the person's individaul walk with God. He knows what we need just when we need it, and He is faithful to speak to me in my way and you in yours. He's got all the sizes. He's got all the shapes. He's got all the "shoes" we need for this twisting, twirling, pivoting, jumping, squatting, toe tapping, gyrating life.
Praise Him!