New Boots!

She’s swimming in the sea of transition. She’s already exhausted. Four months until uplift and her head reaches the pillow each night with thoughts and emotions threatening to drown her. It’s been ten years in this wonderful place and it’s almost time to go ‘home’. Don’t think too much, don’t feel too much.

She needed new boots. Her last ones were bought 10 years ago, as a newly arrived stranger to Peru, with no Spanish, no idea, just hopes and dreams and a heart to learn. Those old boots have seen her thrive, grow in confidence and walked through seasons of both rich growth and deep testing valleys. They’re worn out now, they’ve become unstuck, it’s time for something new.

She walks into the shop and sees the perfect pair, tries them on, the perfect fit, but the price, the price is far from perfect! There’s a sale on, 2 for 1. A lady walks in, just at that moment, a stranger.

‘Are you buying boots?’ asks the stranger.

‘I’d like to, but they’re very expensive,’ she says.

‘Let’s buy them together!’ the stranger says. ‘I need new boots too.’

‘Really?’

‘Of course! Let’s do it!’

They do. She hugs that precious stranger in the shoe shop and whispers in her ear what a blessing she is. The stranger doesn’t realise the half of it. For if God can send a stranger at just the right time, to the right place, for a new pair of boots, how much more will he provide exactly what she needs during these next months and through to the other side of the sea of this transition, back to a place that hasn’t been home for almost 20 years. He can. These new boots are proof. He’s got her covered.

As her head sinks into that pillow, she smells the leather of those new boots. She’s not drowning tonight. She’s grateful. Grateful for the old boots and all they have seen and experienced, and grateful for the miracle of the new and for what awaits them. How much more? So much more!

Matthew 7:11 ‘If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!’