Red Boots

Growing up in the midwest means I enjoy all 4 seasons. Spring with it’s flowers, summer and it’s outside fun, fall has the changing colors and winter with snow and cold. Honestly, winter is not my favorite but as a kid I enjoyed the sledding, ice skating, snowmobiling, and playing king of the mountain on the snow banks.

As we know, in winter there is the extra clothing that we wear to keep warm. The coat, scarf, mittens, snow pants, extra socks, long underwear and of course the boots. One year, not by my choice mind you, I had a pair of red boots with the zipper up the front, black fur on the top and they came past my ankles. Not to be to strong in my feelings about those boots but I hated them, everything about them.

Now I can be stubborn and that stubbornness came out in full force with these boots because I would refuse to wear them. I would hide them in the house, Mom always found them. I would think of ways of hiding them on my walk to school but then I wouldn’t be able to go out for recess. So I was stuck with wearing my red boots all winter. Thankfully my feet grew enough so I only had to wear them for 1 winter.

My Dad found the whole thing with the red boots pretty funny so from then on his nickname for me was Boots.

Now as an adult I can still be pretty stubborn and often times I get that way with God. My parents bought those red boots to keep my feet warm in the winter but it was not my choice so I didn’t like it. How often God has something for me and I don’t like it because it wasn’t what I wanted. So I’m sure there are blessings that I have missed. How important it is to be aware of the gentle voice of God urging us on to do great things for Him even when we don’t want to.