The Absence of Shoes

I can tell who’s home by the pairs of shoes on the floor. For some reason, they seldom make it into the designated “shoe basket” discreetly hidden beneath the table, but that’s all right. I’ve come to appreciate how they’ve increased in both numbers and size over the years.

Today, however, I went home for lunch, and there were no shoes. Normally, I’d breathe a sigh of contentment with the uncluttered space by my front door, but today…..not so much.

The absence of shoes tells me no one will answer back from upstairs when I announce my arrival. The absence of shoes means that college classes have begun for my oldest, and that we’re on the brink of an exciting, exhausting (and expensive) senior year for the other; another indicator of the changing seasons.

I remember when tiny toddler shoes were the first to hit the basket. Soon, chunky hiking boots and sneakers appeared, and soon after that came the soccer cleats, maybe once in awhile a pair of shiny black paten leather dress shoes and then a larger pair of hiking boots. Then came the tae kwon do shoes and flip-flops, slippers and now even bigger hiking boots mixed in with running shoes.

But it’s the hiking boots…yes, I think I’m most thankful for the many pairs of hiking boots.

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6) ESV