And One Pink Shoe

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. (1 Corinthians 13)

Time was running short and books were still not in the backpack and shoes were not on her feet. Just then I said the words that every bus riding sixth grader dreads, "Hurry the bus is here grab your stuff and get out there!" Quickly our youngest daughter swooped all her belongings up in her arms and ran out of the house in her stocking feet just in time to make a leap onto the first step of the bus as it started to pull away.

I sighed with relief. I would not have to make the ever so familiar trek from our driveway to the middle school for a second time. I am sure there soon will be a path worn that all will be able to see and follow. Just then, as I closed the door, I turned around to find that one lonely pink shoe she had left behind.

Sure, in just a few seconds, as she stuffed her homework in the already way too full backpack and after securing the right shoe on her foot would quickly become frantic as she realized to her horror that she indeed left one shoe behind!!!!

Feeling the pain for my oh so unorganized child, I did what any loving mother would do. I jumped in the van, pink shoe in hand and headed as fast as I could down that well worn path to the middle school. Hopping out of the van, pink shoe in hand, walking with great passion past the wonder eyes of teachers and the like to the office to announce that infact I needed to deliver this one pink shoe to my, now so I thought distraught sixth grader.

After much laughter from the ladies in the office they called her down to collect the shoe she so badly needed and that would brighten her day and bring peace to her sixth grade world, or so I thought.

Smile on my face, laughter in my voice, pink shoe in hand, I walked to the entry of the school and began to look for her amid the pushing and rushing of middle school students getting to homeroom before the late bell rang. I spotted her smile and quizzical look as she saw me standing there. By now, you have guessed it. She was not shoeless at all! For some reason known only to God Himself, she decided to take the oldest pair of shoes she owned which, on any other day, she would not be caught in. It would be a fate worse than death to her sixth grade mind.

As I looked down I began to laugh and explain, and as I asked her the one non-sixth grade question, "Aren't you glad you have a mom who cares". She looked up, as I am sure I did many times, and replied "Well, no, not really. But could you go back and get the other shoe and bring it back?"

I sighed as I told her she would not be getting the other shoe, walked back to the van and more slowly this time, drove home.

As I stood in the kitchen washing dishes and feeling a bit sad about her words, I smiled too because I know that there will be a day when she is the mom standing with one pink shoe.

Love Is Patient. Love is Kind.

Here's to you and all of your, "one pink shoes."