Living with toes tucked under

She had been asking for new tennis shoe for a couple of weeks.  I thought that she had just grown tired of her perfectly-good-purchased-less-than a year -ago tennis shoes, so I was not in a hurry to take her shopping for new ones.  Eventually, she wore me down with pretty pleases and good behavior, so off we ran to make a purchase.

So I began with one size up - a size 5, and handed her a stack of boxes to begin the parade of  the trying on.
Funny. She was not  a size 5, so I grabbed a 6.
Nope. The 6 didn't fit either.  7's here we go.  Nope- 7's were a little tight.  7.5?
Really? It's not even been a year since we bought that other pair! In the end, she walked out of the store with a size 8 women's tennis shoe.  Oh. My. 

On the way out, I inquired, "Girlie, have you been curling your toes up in the end of your old tennis shoes for a while?" flabbergasted that her shoe size had doubled and wondering how she had had a sunny disposition all the while wearing shoes too small.  She said, "I dunno.  I guess. I really hadn't noticed except that my feet hurt sometimes and my shoes were tight." 

Sometimes we get accustomed to things the way they are, or the way they have become, and instead of dealing with them, we just continue on with our toes curling up in the ends of our shoes.  We compensate for instead of combat against a situation that requires action.  It could mean dwelling in comfortable misery or growing resigned or feeding hopelessness - that toe curling business.   It could also be just dealing with what you've got in the only way you know how.  Have you ever grown comfortable with the discomfort?  Content with discontentment? Numb to the pain that was intended to awaken you?

Sometimes a situation that we are in deteriorates around us, but we can't necessarily see the damage that is so close.  Or maybe we've curled one toe at a time and the discomfort was so slightly incremental that we didn't notice the pain of our toes-sies learning to operate half baked.  The art of not noticing or pretending to not see can be evidence of a person numbly walking in bondage, ensnared by the Father of Lies.  It masquerades as a coping mechanism and walks hand in hand with complacency and apathy, residing at the intersection of hopelessness and oppression.  It coaxes us into thinking that we are stuck.  Why bother?

Because God intends for us to frolic in glorious freedom with arms and toes and hearts outstretched for Him!

Are you walking around with your toes tucked under?  Is the life that you are meant to live trapped in by the life you are currently living?  Don't ya hear Him calling? I do!!!!

"We should reject the things that numb us of our captivity." Rebekah Lyons