Beautiful Feet
HAPPY ONE MONTH ANNIVERSARY! It has been one crazy journey already and we are just at the tip of the iceberg! Hilariously, this is the longest committed relationship I have ever been in and how great is it that it’s with Jesus and you! I have been blessed with SO much this past month, learning and growing. To commemorate our journey so far, I wanted to share a God-moment that happened to me and my team on Saturday!
So Every team does a Romans devotional from 8-9 every day. We usually meet somewhere on campus but our AMAZING leader, Esther, treated our team to breakfast at Chick! We enjoyed our food as we studied Romans 10. In Romans 10:15 it says “ how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.” We chatted for a long time about how society doesn’t portray feet to be all that beautiful but the word is counter-cultural in esteeming beauty to our feet! We ended our devotional and hopped back in the vans without another thought of feet. Hours later, we got ready to go to our local ministry where we go out to serve the community in a variety of different ways. We went to our ministry, where we got the honor of sealing the stairs and porch of a half-way home for women who have been sexual exploited. We went inside to say hi for five minutes but ended up staying for an hour. We met G, S, and C( as a way to protect them, I will use the first letter of their names). Each of them had a testimony that made you stop and thank God for His goodness and faithfulness! We got the privilege to ask them questions and they bestowed advice about how to best minister to individuals that are trapped in this industry. G highlighted to us that life for these girls was SO dangerous! She told us a story of how when she finally got the courage to leave, her pimp told her to come back and when she refused, he sent out someone to kill her. The person shot her in her leg, the bullet went through her leg, missing her femur by two inches( PRAISE GOD). Listening to the raw vulnerability of these powerful women gave me so much hope and sorrow all at once. Hope that people trapped in this horrible circumstance are able to find their way to God and sorrow that women ALL AROUND the world have to experience this in the first place! Since Cambodia and Thailand have some of the HIGHEST rates of human trafficking, the ladies’s advices were helpful in opening our eyes to the realness of the situation! After we finished everything, we go ready to leave but none of us wanted to leave, so Esther coordinated a time for us to come back on Saturday! We started thinking of ideas of things we could bring( I.e crafts, flowers). We went to Kroger and bought fall themed dessert and flowers. When we got there, we were welcomed with so much love, G, C, and S came running proclaiming that they had a surprise for US! They lead us inside where a table of abundance was arranged! There was HOT coffee, liquid creamer, chocolate bread, a cheese board, hot coco, real milk! If you know how we live in Gainesville, you know that we don’t get ANY of this stuff. Coffee is made from instant powder, creamer is powder, no chocolate bread, and milk is only available for cereal at breakfast! So this was SUPER special for us to sit and enjoy a hot cup of coffee. Thinking that was the surprise we continue to mingle but G reveals to us that that’s not all. She points to the buckets that are sitting on the floor and tells us that we are doing a princess night. Backstory: When the three of them were at the last program, they had princess night on their last night. At princess night, the girls get to have their feet washed as a symbol of redemption and restoration! I start tearing up as she explains that they wanted to do it for us as a way to prepare us for the trip. It was honestly the most humbling, intimate and Christ-like thing that’s ever been done to me! C washed my feet and as she did, S anointed my head and gave me the most comforting forehead kiss. All the while, G is pouring into me through Scripture. They were crying, I was crying, everyone was crying! Analise( one of my teammates) said it best when she said “ who are we that you wash our feet!” These woman had gone through hell yet they wanted to wash our feet, how undeserving we were! It made me realize of how undeserving we are of Christ’s mercy and grace! I am a dirty rag that deserves to be thrown away but he doesn’t, instead, he cleans me! I could feel the literal spirit of Jesus in the hands of G as she washed over me. I became overwhelmed with warmth, hope and joy that I couldn’t stop crying. Through the entirety of this, the three of them kept saying what a blessing it was FOR THEM to do this for they have had it done for them but they have never gotten to return the favor back. I learned so much in those 4 hours that we spent with these AMAZING, GOD-FEARING women! All I can say is, if you are in a season of learning to be humble( which I am), wash someone’s feet. Wash it without expectation, without hesitation, without hatred. Wash it with the gentleness, love, and grace that these ladies washed ours with. Wash it out of a place where you KNOW that you are undeserving of God’s grace but because He lowered himself for you, lower yourself for someone else! If your heart is in the right posture, you will find that YOU are also being cleansed while your cleaning them! I also urge you to not think of feet as these crusty, nasty looking things that smell but think of them as the instruments used by God to spread His good news. To G, C, S, thank you for renewing my faith in humanity, thank you for being so vulnerable to teenagers, thank you for your unceasing passion for the Lord, thank you for a memory I will never forget, thank you for changing my perspective on feet, thank you for BEING THE FEET that carry the good news, thank you from the bottom of my heart!
ALSO ENJOY THESE PICTURES TO CELEBRATE OUR ONE MONTH!??
Shalom,
Remy
