Putting On Her Socks

What are you squeamish about or what makes your skin crawl?  Everybody has something that makes them go wobbly all over.  For me, it’s touching feet.  I have no idea why but the thought of touching someone’s feet or having anyone touch mine is a horror.  A friend wanted to give me a pedicure as a gift some years ago.  The thought was so abhorrent that I had to come clean and tell her that I would rather remove my own tonsils with a fork.

Then the moment, that all my life I thought I could never handle, presented itself to me.  It was last week while my mother was in the hospital with a pulmonary embolism (doing so much better now).  She swung her legs to the side of the bed as she wanted to go to the bathroom.  I saw her look down at her bedroom shoes.  I moved nearer to her feet.  “My feet are so cold,” she said.  I noticed the socks in her shoes.  She began to lower her arm with great effort to bend down and get her socks.  That’s when it happened; a rush of compassion poured over me.  I heard myself say, “I’ll do that, Mom.”  I reached down, picked up her socks, and pulled them onto her bare feet and up over her ankles.  Then I slipped each bedroom shoe onto her feet.  I helped her stand, get steady, and walked with her to the bathroom.

As I stood outside the door waiting, the verse from Jeremiah 31:3 came to my mind, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; with great tenderness I have drawn you unto myself.”  That’s how Father loves me.  That’s how He loves  you.  He is forever bending down, pulling up our socks of need, helping us to stand steady on shaky legs of weakness.

“How deep the Father’s love for us,  How vast beyond all measure, That He should give His only Son, To make a wretch His treasure.”  Lyrics by Stuart Townsend