Judging My Shoes

See this picture? This is a pair of K Swiss tennis shoes I bought in the spring of 2012 at Rugged Wearhouse for $20. I was still working and planning on working for a long while. This was way before I got sick, before Mom got sick, and before money became tight.

Now, when it comes to clothes and shoes, I could care less what I am wearing as long as I am covered up. And I can get a lot of wear out of what I do have. But the tennis shoes I had were getting pretty rough, and I figured this was a good deal, so I came home with these shoes.

I wore them a few times here and there, then I ended up in the hospital, Mom ended up sick. With not working, and having the wound in my stomach and a new colostomy, I dressed in sweats a lot, and I wore these tennis shoes more than I had before.

So, one day I was visiting someone and we were talking about how things can happen so quickly and how money gets tight fast when you’re not working, and gas money to drive to Charlottesville and back home (about an 82 mile round trip) everyday for Mom’s cancer treatments…and she looked at my feet and said, “Are those new shoes?”

I guess she thought I was “pleading hard times” (do y’all say that?) while spending money on new shoes.

Which made me stop and think.

How many times have I done the same thing?

How many times have I known someone who was having difficulties and judged their situation by what they were wearing, driving, eating, etc.?

How many times have I known someone who was on disability and saw them doing something and said, “If they can do that, they can work”?

How many times have I seen someone check out at the grocery store using an EBT card and thought, “I’m getting tired of my tax money paying for someone else’s groceries and I can’t afford my own”?

Now don’t get me wrong - I know that there are people who take advantage of government programs, and should be investigated. This includes Medicaid, Food Stamps, and disability.

But there are a group of people out there who don’t use assistance programs as a career. There are people out there who live from paycheck to paycheck, with a plan for every penny that they make…as long as nothing goes wrong. Their finances are a finely tuned machine that works as long as there aren’t any glitches. They work, they pay taxes, but sometimes the money doesn’t cover the bills.

They don’t live extravagantly, they just live.

And when unemployment comes, or illness invades their lives, or a spouse leaves them with unpaid bills…and many other scenarios, the bottom falls out. Financially and emotionally.

There are also people out there who are physically challenged to do things for themselves anymore - some do physical labor that they shouldn’t be doing. But why?

Over the next few posts, I want to share how I went from being one of those people who judged others, to being on the other side of the fence.

I want to share how I learned the difference between “church folks” and Christians.

And how sometimes money isn’t the greatest need in someone’s life.

Meanwhile, back to the shoes.

I still have these shoes. They are still in really good shape. They are good for my balance and my walking,  and they help my back a lot with their support. But I still hesitate to wear them because I know how people are.

I know how I am. I know the looks. I know the thoughts. I’ve looked that way. I’ve thought that way.

And now sometimes those looks and thoughts are being thrown in my direction.

But what the world doesn’t understand (and some Christians) is that you can’t judge a book by its cover. As Paul Harvey used to say, you have to know “the rest of the story”. But a lot of times we don’t care. We just judge.

So, more often than not, I put on my old Nike tennis shoes. They are old and worn out, have no support left in them, and the soles are just about detached from the bottom…sometimes they flop when I walk.

Some days, more often than not, I feel a lot like these old Nikes. Physically and spiritually. My body has gone through a lot the last couple of years, and I am still having issues that need to be addressed - I can’t do a lot of the things I used to do, and it gets frustrating at times.

Some days, I spiritually feel like these old Nikes. I feel like my soul is detached, and that no matter how hard I try, I just don’t get it.

But through it all, I trust Him who made me. I trust Him who died for me. I trust Him who saved me.

He has a purpose for this season in my life. And I am not ashamed to share the Jesus who is my Saviour, my Lord and my provider.

No matter what people say about my shoes or anything else in my life.

Because in this weakness, I am losing a lot of things.

I have lost my ability to financially provide for myself right now, and I have lost my health in certain areas.

I have lost friends who either don’t care or don’t care to take the time to care.

I have lost my pride. For this time in my life, I have had to accept help from people and places that have truly humbled me. Some of it has been financial. Some of it has been physical. And we will go into that later in this series.

And in this weakness, I am gaining even more.

Those friends who didn’t care or didn’t take time to care have been replaced with those who do care, and who do take time to care.

Help has come from God’s people in ways that I could never imagine.

But most of all, I continue to gain a dependence on Christ that I would not have had, had I not been made weak in all areas of my life.

Through the next few posts, we will explore some of these areas and I will share how God has used my experiences so far to change my perspective on a lot of things.

As I was recovering from my surgery, this verse appeared in my devotions one morning:

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 4: 17-18

I consider the struggles of this life a light affliction. And I am looking forward to the things which are not seen, that are eternal.

Join me next time as we discuss the difference between “church folks” and Christians.

This Jesus I Follow...

Well, it's almost finally here! I guess you all have noticed that I haven't posted in awhile...well, this is what I have been working on.

This is a self-published, self-produced project of 9 of my original songs, the stories behind the songs, and the Biblical lessons from each song.

The packaging is not fancy, nor is the recording: just me and the guitar (and banjo in a couple of places). But it is my heartfelt desire to get the message out...to share the Gospel...and to show others this Jesus I Follow...

This project is available for a suggested donation of $15 ($5 for shipping and handling if I mail it to you). Please contact me at lissaleighmorris@gmail.com or call/text 434-282-5355 for ordering information.

I QUIT!

Today I officially put in my notice. Effective today, no thirty day notice, no two week notice…today is the day.

I am done.

Done with what, you ask? Read on.

Does the title surprise you? For some people in my life, it may not. Some people know me as a quitter.

When I started community college, my dad told me he would not help pay for my schooling because “you quit everything you start after about 2 weeks”. It’s funny that my dad told me this, because a lot of this same behavior was exhibited in his own life.

As I look back over my life, and as angry as his words made me, I realize he was right. There are many instances that come to mind over the years that I can think of where I started something with great excitement, jumping in with both feet.

And shortly thereafter, I was done. The excitement was gone.

And I quit.

I can think of a lot of reasons this happened - we all get excited about things, and we want to be a part of things. But when something goes wrong or other people don’t get as excited as we do, the wind goes out from our sails and we’re done.

Most people think I have a strong personality, but I really don’t. I am hard headed and stubborn, but when confrontation arrives, I leave. Therefore, when I am confronted with strong personalities, I have a hard time expressing my opinion and standing my ground.

So it’s easier to quit.

The crazy thing is that this behavior continued after I got saved and began working in the church. There were some of the same reasons involved: strong personalities, confrontation, etc. But in church, people have something else they use (and misuse): Scripture and church authority.

If you are not Scripturally sound, some people will use Scripture and the great statement of: “I prayed about this and I think this is what God wants you to do/don’t do”.

Ahhhh….the God guilt. But this kind of guilt doesn’t come from God. It comes from people who (usually have strong personalities and seem very “holy”) are trying to be the Holy Spirit to those they deem in need of their spiritual guidance.

I have been a victim of this, and I have done this to others.

There are many examples I can use from just my church experience, and I know many others who have experienced the same thing. The one instance I would like to share today is this:

My first few years as a new Christian, I was in one of those situations where I had three very strong personalities take me on as their “personal project”. They had been Christians longer than me, so I assumed they were right. I never questioned anything they told me about myself. I pretty much let them control me, and the words “church discipline” were thrown around a lot ( don‘t beat me up for this statement. I know there is such a thing as church discipline and that it needs to be exercised in certain situations according to Scripture, but it should not be used as a scare tactic).

Now don’t get me wrong, I had some serious anger issues and I was a very mean person. But sometimes I think they realized this too much and pushed my buttons on purpose. When I acted on my anger, I would get the “See, there she goes again, she hasn’t changed at all”. But my desire for friends and my fear of church discipline allowed me to continue in this unhealthy pattern.

Anytime I was sad or depressed, or shared out loud some of my fears about life or decisions I needed to make, I was told I didn’t have enough faith. Nothing that I did was right.

It got to the point where I was even accused by several church members (through gossip and backbiting) of something terrible concerning me and another church member that really broke my heart. Then it got to the point that if I went to church and spoke to that person, I was talking to them too much; if I didn’t speak to that person, I was being obstinate and mean.

It got to a place where I couldn’t win.

During this time, I also began having some issues with my job, and I really felt that God was telling me to resign because He had something better for me in store that I needed to be ready for. I knew He was telling me to jump and when He was ready for me to land, He would have the ground prepared.

I got excited! If I really take this leap, surely they will see that I have faith in God and His plan for me!

I told two of these three people in my life that I stepped out in faith and resigned and was waiting on God to show me my next steps. After all, faith was what I didn’t have enough of, right?

Both of them responded like this:

“You’re lying. You got fired didn’t you?”

Geezy pete, really?

3 months later, God rewarded my leap of faith with a great new job at a Christian company that not only allowed me to share my faith at work, but went above and beyond to help me during my illness in 2012. I was also during this employment that I had the counsel of a man who encouraged me to seek God’s face, and he listened to me.

I began pulling away from these folks at church. There were lots of other instances involved that I won’t go into, but it came down to me being told to come in for a meeting with the pastor and another church leader or I would be brought up on church discipline.

The very thing I had feared so long…

I prayed for God to give me strength and the words to say to be honoring to Him during this meeting. And He did. I confessed where I was wrong, but I also defended myself Scripturally and in a way that was God honoring. I didn’t get angry. I just said what I had to say.

And I let them know I would be looking for another church.

To some people, I quit again. This pastor even told me that if I wanted to go to another church to go ahead, because someone had told him when I joined this church that I was just a “church-hopper” anyway. The sad thing is that he relied on gossip and started naming churches that this person told him that I had supposedly been to that I had never set foot in.

This time, I quit for the right reasons. I felt like God had been telling me to move for awhile, but I was scared of what people would say.

I wasn’t scared anymore. This was an unhealthy environment spiritually and I needed to go somewhere that would allow me to seek God. To find the true Jesus.

This journey continues today…I am still seeking that place that God wants me to be, and I won’t make any hasty decisions this time. I will seek where He wants me to serve.

So, what am I quitting?

Over the past few years, God has, through many different circumstances, been trying to get me to depend fully on Him instead of on myself and other people, instead of on a salary and a job, and things, and stuff.

I have been gradually doing this…letting go a little at a time.

But today, I officially quit. I am tired of trying to do God’s job for Him.

So I resign.

I am at the point in my life where I have no job, no insurance, no car, no significant worldly possessions, no income, and a health status that has declined a lot in the past year and a half.

What I do have, I am completely committing to Him. 

My life, my all.

Adrian Rogers tells the story of a pastor who started at a new church and a lady came up to him on his first day and said, “Pastor, you’re gonna have a hard time pleasing all 300 of us here at this church”. The Pastor replied, “I have no interest in pleasing any of you. There is only One I must please, and that is Jesus”.

I say Amen to that.

Are you ready to quit?