Twisted Toes

Feet Series, Part 1

My ski boots lie there on the floor, covered with at least three years’ worth of dust. Three years of sitting on a shelf in the garage, waiting through the pregnancies and needs of newborns, waiting as I watched my oldest, learn to ski without me. I told myself the day would come when I would go too, skiing with my kids just like my parents used to ski with me.

I didn’t consider my feet.

The medication had worked for a long time, keeping the arthritis at bay and opening up possibilities I thought were lost to me. Lately, though, the pain had been creeping back, bit by bit.

Funny how disease does that, sneaking up, stealing away small pieces and by the time we notice, the damage is done.

I stare in disgust at my twisted toes, ugly arthritis toes. I can barely get the boots on, much less ski in them.

I try not to think about how my toes reflect my heart, twisted, so quick to frustration, anger, questioning blame. And even while the hot tears of disappointment fall, I ask myself, how will you handle it this time?

Because I do have a choice. The grief is real, undeniable, but I can choose how the grief shapes me. And I can choose who my son sees.

I can let the storm flood over my hard heart, washing away all peace and wreaking havoc, or I can let it soak into the soft soil of surrender.

I can’t help it, though; the question forms itself unbidden. This time, though, I whisper it. Why?

I hear the verse like the first tender shoot poking up. “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9)

A riddle. How to understand? What is His strength if it means this, this pain and loss and brokenness?

“The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh. 8:10).

My strength is in His joy.

“We are cold when it comes to rejoicing in God,” John Calvin wrote. “Hence, we need to exercise ourselves in it and employ all our senses in it—our feet, our hands, our arms and all the rest—that they all might serve in the worship of God and so magnify Him.”[1]

My toes used to be perfect, used to propel me swiftly up mountains and anywhere else I wished to go. I didn’t think much about my toes. But I thought much of my own abilities.

And then the disease of the flesh revealed the disease of my heart.

I am called to worship God—to thank Him—not in spite of my twisted toes, but because of them. For how would I know of the grace of God if I didn’t know just how much I needed Him?

Paul learned weakness through “a thorn in the flesh,” a “messenger of Satan.” God did not cause it, but He allowed it lest Paul “be exalted above measure.” Paul learned to boast not in his abilities but his infirmities, “that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” He was even so bold to say he took pleasure in infirmities, for there he learned Christ’s strength.

The only exercise I am called to is worship.

Even twisted toes—especially twisted toes—can do that. For those who have been made un-able get to see the abilities of God.

My son may or may not remember if I send him off to the slopes tomorrow with a smile. But he will certainly remember a bitter mama. I have much to learn about this. But I can choose how to spend the day. I can spend the day counting graces, employing all my senses—even my feet—in rejoicing.

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[1] quoted in One Thousand Gifts Devotional by Ann Voskamp, Zondervan, 2012