So I’m not sure if any of you know anything about Africa, but it’s not the most advanced place in the world. Many of the roads/sidewalks are not paved and there is dirt and sand everywhere you step.
Because of this, your feet are dirty 100% of the time.
There is also not a guarantee of shower water. But even if there was- your walk from the shower to where ever you are sleeping would ensure that your feet would again be dirty.
On the race you expect to get sweaty and dirty and not always be in the cleanest places. However being a girl this is sometimes a hard thing to come to grips with. Towards the end of our first month- knowing that the second month would be the same- I was starting to get a little frustrated with this fact. We were living in tents and it was hard to keep the dirt out when we were always covered- not to mention they would often smell pretty bad too.
Then the comparison sets in. “how are her feet so clean?,” “where did she get that nail polish?,” “how many baby wipes can she possibly have left?,” or “how come she never smells bad?” …… So many questions and possibilities cross through our heads.
During our debrief week after our first month of ministry our squad mentor Renee talked about vulnerability and being open and sharing our struggles within our teams. Not something that comes naturally to me. In fact, I really DO NOT want to tell these four other women, whom I just met a month earlier, all about the things that make me insecure and share all the thoughts and jealousy that has been running through my head. I don’t want to talk about how smelly and dirty I am and how gross I feel about myself.
I did though. I shared about my insecurities as I stared down at my dirty feet.
As I sat in the small room of the Church where we had our meetings God reminded me of a few things. A couple nights after we shared our vulnerabilities with each other we had a time to simply come before God in any way that we needed. I sat and listened. I listened as God reminded me of Isaiah 52:7. This is a verse that is very meaningful to me- which I also happened to have tattoo’d on my foot. It was also the verse that I used in all of my communications concerning my World Race journey.
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who publish peace, who bring good tidings, who shout to Zion, ‘your God reigns!”
God was definately telling me something. Reminding me what I was supposed to be about. Reminding me of what matters. Reminding me of my beauty.
My feet are beautiful. My dirty feet are filled with beauty. In fact, it’s the dirt that makes them beautiful. That dirt that was picked up during street evangelism, the dirt embedded between my toes while playing soccer barefoot with the local children, the mud and grass stuck to my feet by doing yardwork at the clinic. It’s there for a reason. It’s there because I’m bringing good news. It’s there because I am following the path that God has laid before me.
It’s not about me, it’s about God. He is the reason I came on this journey and He is the reason I do everything I do. And He has made me in His image. He has called me to be beautiful.
All it took for me to see it was some really dirty feet.
