God In The Every Day Things (Shoelaces?)

God in the Every Day Things (But Shoelaces?)
by Marilyn Mackenzie
March 20, 2002

After I finished my morning devotions, I wondered if I weren't going a bit nutty. Truly I did, for an image of shoelaces kept flashing through my mind's eye as I began my daily routine. Shoelaces? What could that mean? Most of my shoes don't even have shoelaces!

Irritatingly almost, the images of shoelaces flashed through my mind. "Gosh, golly, gee whiz," Ms. Merry Sunshine thought exasperatingly. "Why am I thinking about shoelaces?" Why, indeed.

I gave up trying to clean the kitchen, and sat down at my table. Before me lay an empty page. I "obediently" picked up a pen, preparing to put pen to paper, waiting for the inspiration, the piece of wisdom that must be wanting to push itself past the image of the shoelaces dancing through my brain. (My son was at the computer, and pen and paper would just have to do.)

Then, the words came, "Life is like..." What? I'm neglecting my domestic chores to think about Forrest Gump? Life is like a box of chocolates?

A picture, almost like a movie, flashed anew through my mind. Shoelaces! But this time, there were many different kinds of laces. Some were tied neatly in bows; they were fresh and clean as well. "An ordered life," I thought. That's what those shoelaces represented.

Next up in the movie of my mind appeared a pair of laces partially undone, the dangling piece worn and dirty from having been dragged over concrete and through the mud. As I thought of the many people I've seen walking around, both young and old, with their laces partially tied and partially undone, I realized that many more of us appear this way. Our lives are partially ordered and partially in shambles. And we go about our lives seeming not to notice that we're dragging our laces behind us.

My mind next pictured a fully undone and dirty pair of laces, entrapped in a pair of dirty, smelly shoes with holes in the soles. What a sad life those laces must have.

The pictures stopped, and I gathered that I was supposed to draw some conclusions from the images I had seen.

As a child of the King, a follower of Christ, what other conclusion could I draw, but the one that reminded me that, "with God, all things are possible." With God at the center of our lives, with Christ as the one we want to emulate, our laces will appear to be clean and properly tied. Our lives will be more ordered lives.

The day's lesson completed, I was now free to resume the domestic chores of the day.

Oh, the life of a writer... I grinned as I thought, "indeed, is it any wonder some think me rather odd."

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