October 15, 2007

Dirty Feet & Divine Moments

For 16.5 years I have arrived at church service with freshly showered feet. For 16.5 years I have never had my feet washed during service. But not this Sunday.

The Long Beach Marathon runs in front of our house. From our garage you can take the alley to the street and go north to the church. But from our driveway...it's almost impossible to go north because all the side streets are barricaded. So early Sunday morning...with NO wallet, money, phone, or SHOES...I jumped in our daughter's car to move it behind the house to the alley so she could get to church to teach the youth. Bad decision.

They wouldn't let me back to my house...all side streets were barricaded. I drove for an hour trying to find a route back to my house. Meanwhile the clock was ticking before service was to start. Finally I gave up. I scrounged through Lindsey's car...found one dollar bill...and walked barefoot across the parking lot to a grocery store to get change for a pay phone.

It's been 5 years since I used a payphone....but I called Deb and said..."bring my clothes to my office"...I drove to the church office...walked barefoot through the parking lot... finally 7 minutes before service was to start she showed up...I shaved and changed clothes and ran to service...with dirty feet. Our Leadership Council did an amazing job of running the entire service as an act of love for staff appreciation day. At the end of service...they washed our feet and mine were really dirty! It was a divine moment.

16 years NEVER NEEDING my feet washed. 16 years NEVER HAVING my feet washed at church. But God brought it all together...now is that ODD or is that GOD?

1 comment:

Michele said...

Oh, that was sooo like the Lord! What are the chances of that happening that way on that particular day? I love this blog Larry.

Love, the bald monk from Federal Way