Take your shoes off

When you work on a college campus and look like a college student, you get to do cool things.

Sometimes it means a college freshman asking if you're still in high school--that's always fun. Sometimes it means sweet twenty-year-olds coming into your office for a listening ear and advice. Sometimes it means returning to Cups and reminiscing life and smells and baristas.   

A few weeks ago, it meant attending a rush event. It was odd because I wasn't a pledge or an officer; I was simply a bystander, partially there to be an adult presence (what does that even mean) and partially there to watch girls see the Gospel for the first time. 

The night was beautiful. Grace and forgiveness were realistically shown. Words of identity were claimed while lies were exposed. Songs of worship were delicately and exuberantly lifted to Jesus. And feet were washed. 

Although I was a stranger to most of the eighteen-year-olds in the crowd, there were two special people I got to share this night with:

One of those people is Elizabeth: my Portland friend, my coffee mug and leather-smith friend, my confession friend. We entered into a sweet season of discipleship when she was a freshmen and I was a junior, barely a step ahead of her in life but not for long. She soon learned the tools to teach herself. She discovered the invention of her own two feet and developed the strength to walk, run, and dance on her own. That is Elizabeth. The tables have beautifully turned, and I couldn’t be prouder. We've learned so much together, and we still do, but she has grown to be my peer, an equal in maturity, and a dear friend. Portland, New Years—here we come. 

The other friend was Hailey. She is my post-college friend. My “how did we get here” friend. My fight-alongsider friend. My “you can’t be all the things” friend (and I have a lot of those, praise Jesus). My friend who makes me crepes and hot tea and a safe place. My friend who grits her teeth at life, who laughs at the days to come, who welcomes joy in dark places. She may walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but she fears no evil. She is my Victory friend. 

So we stood in the back--my Victory friend and I--content to watch sweet 18-year-old girls see Jesus in a fresh way, just like we did a few years ago. Praying, singing, listening. 

“Can I wash your feet?” she asked me in the hushed silence and fervent singing. 

“No! They stink!” I replied back, horrified just thinking about exposing my smelly feet, even to a dear friend. 

She gazed gently at my pride, pushing aside my embarrassment. Her eyes were kind but firm, as if to say, “Silly friend. Do you think I care about that?” 

And I knew that if there was ever a safe person to expose my feet, it was Hailey. 

So I reluctantly sat down and took off my shoes: the hand-me-down shoes that have seen months of traveling and hotels and airplanes and road trips. Shoes that I'm not too keen about taking off in front of other human noses.

I slid off my shoes, kicking them and any potential smells behind my chair. She gently took my feet onto her lap, scrubbing away the stench of isolation and dirt, weariness and insecurity. 

Gosh, Jesus is so sweet to command us to wash each others’ feet. What a humbling reminder that we are not supposed to keep our feet to ourselves. We are not to bury our sin in the breeding ground of shame, but invite our people onto that ground. Washing feet is about exposing our dirty, overused, exhausted, blistering, and scarred selves to our people, letting them put gentle hands around our feet, stink and all, and wipe it away. 

No part of my humanity wants to put a stinky foot into a friend’s lap. But it’s what Jesus joyfully did and asks his disciples to continuously do—to serve one another on a deeper level than deeds, to show that there is no shame too isolating, no stink too nasty for fellow Jesus followers.

There’s a reason why Jesus washed His disciple’s feet and not His own. Something about exposing the lowest part of yourself to freedom-walkers and Truth-dwellers creates the relationship He designed.

Hailey reminded me, "If you will be brave enough to take off your shoes, I will gently guide your feet to the soap, the warm water, and the towel."

So she washed. In complete humility, she cradled my feet in her hands and guided them towards cleansing.  And man, the freedom to share that with a sister was everything I needed. I just had to take my shoes off. 

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What I'm reading: 

East of Eden by John Steinbeck. Read it. It's made its way into my top 5 books of all time. Timshel. 

Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte. Because I have to read it for grad school. Turn up. 

The Hungering Dark by Fredrick Buechner. Slow, poetic, complicated, thought-provoking, beautiful. 

What I'm listening to: 

John Mark McMillian. Specifically Heart Runs. Bought tickets to his Nashville concert with Josh Garrels in February. Yay! 

Adele... duh. Hello. 

Justin Beiber's new album. Low-key ashamed. 

From the Front Porch podcast by Annie Jones

Just about every Ted Talk I can get my hands on.