Shoe-a-holic!!!

I wanted a new pair of shoes so bad! I dreamt about it so much, imagined the soft padding against the soles of my feet, the shiny leather, the perfect curve that outlined my feet, wrapping beautifully around them, like a caress, the miles and endless miles of the razor thin metallic heels, the slender straps sitting lazily around my ankles. I could imagine my calves firming up above them,

The slight thrust to my hips, tow my back would stand straighter, shoulders squarer, head higher

The confidence they would give to my gait…

Sigh! I wanted those shoes like arrrggghhh!!!! Okay, okay! Apart from all the day dreaming, I really did need a pair of shoes. I had lovingly worn my old pair to the ground and a new pair was a necessity and if I was going to get a new pair anyways, I could as well get one I loved, what’s a girl to do nah?! I was sooooooo done with the sneakers and pumps, it was time for some sexy, grown-up shoes! *Wink* There was one tinny-bitty problem though: there was no way I could afford the shoes! I was just another broke student and even if I’d started saving up every penny I could possibly lay my hands on, I would still have been far from being able to afford a pair like that one! So, it looked like all I was left with were my dreams and my tattered pair of sneakers.

Then one day I got home from school and there, sitting on my bed was a box from New Look! My first thought was that I’d probably been thinking about the shoes so much that I was beginning to see things! Then I saw my father beaming at me from the doorway. He said he’d known I needed a new pair of shoes and he got me one on his way from work!

Oh! My! Days!!! That man is simply amazing! How on earth had he known I needed the shoes, I hadn’t said a word to anyone, and how could he have known that I’d spent hours and hours starring into that shop window!!! That was the bestest surprise ever! I was so excited, I almost couldn’t open the box! It was going to be the best day of my life for sure! I couldn’t wait to slip my feet into the shoes for the first time! The feeling, priceless!!! I finally managed to rip the lid off…

So, I wanted a pair of shoes so bad. And my father, my sweet, sweet father got me a pair

And for the life of me, I didn’t like the shoes, and that makes me feel so terrible, it makes me feel like a monster, an ungrateful monster who did not appreciate the thoughtfulness of her father’s gesture, I think of my father, and I want so much to love the shoes he bought me. I’ve tried so, so hard, I’ve even told myself over and over that I do love them, but deep down, I know I don’t. I know I won’t. And coward that I am, I have not been able to confess that to my father. How do I tell him that?! How can I?!!! He would be so hurt! How do I look him in the eye after that? I know I’ll never have the courage to ask him for anything else ever again! After all, I didn’t appreciate what I have been given, I definitely do not deserve anything else! I put on my new shoes every single day. I wear them everywhere without fail. My new shoes that I do not like one bit.

Maybe a part of me just thinks that if I punished myself this way, I’ll somehow make up for the wrong I’ve done. But no punishment will ever be enough. Nothing can make me feel better about this. It was just a pair of shoes but it’s dug a chasm between me and my father. Somehow, I think he knows the truth and I can imagine how much that breaks his heart, how very disappointed he must be. He would never forgive me for this, I just know it. It would always be there between us. The chasm dug by a pair of shoes. No, two pairs of shoes actually. The guilt won’t let me talk to him like I used to, it won’t let me laugh easily with him like I used to. It won’t let me enjoy the moments I used to with my father. I wish I could go back and undo it all ‘cos I miss him, I miss him so bad! Somehow, I know I should just be honest with him, tell him the truth instead of carrying my guilt around with me. But with each day that passes, the opportunity to do that slips further and further away from me and it gets more difficult. Impossible. I want to be able to tell him that I don’t care about the shoes, the ones in the shop window or the ones that stared at me from that box. I want to tell him he was right, that he knows best, knows what’s best for me. I want to tell him I’ll do anything, even go barefoot just to get things back the way they were. I just want to tell him how sorry I am, that I love him, that I want him to love me again.…

…nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God which is ours through Christ Jesus our Lord...as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us...if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from our unrighteousness...

Romans 8:39, Psalm 103:12, 1 John 1:9