“I just love shoes…”

I hear people on tv & in my own life utter words such as these all the time.  “I can’t help it I just LOVE shoes” and then it is followed by a listing off of how many pairs they have, what their favorite kind is (back in the day Converse Chuck’s in all sorts of colors, then there was the Air Jordan’s – I guess still a craze – and these are just from the guy’s perspective – Praise the Lord I can’t quote much about what women say ha ha).  They also then try to ashamedly (and sometimes, unfortunately, even proudly) state how much they spend a month, or year, or per pair on these shoes.  There is even a facebook group called “I just love shoes!!!” and even a recent Time Magazine article talking about women’s “love” for shoes.

But today I stumbled upon a recent post by one of my friends – Caroline – she is a beautiful person who writes beautiful things about the beautiful creations of people & places & critters & creatures in South Africa.  She & her hubby are doing some tremendous work with a group called “Samaritan’s Feet” – and she shared a post about “WHAT 15,000 PAIRS OF SHOES LOOK LIKE?”.

PLEASE TAKE ABOUT 5 minutes to read it and look at the pics – also about 4 min to watch the video at the end – ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE ONE OF THE ABOVE MENTIONED PEOPLE THAT “just love shoes”.  Don’t worry I’ll wait………

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So here is what I got to thinking about after I read that piece (by the way you should keep check on her blog – she is a wonderful writer with deep convictions and you will be challenged each time you read her thoughts).  I wonder if those who say something like “I just love shoes” should really change their tune to something more accurate like “I just love ME!” –

Yeah you heard me right – cause basically when someone shares about their love/fetish/addiction WHATEVER towards shoes what they are ultimately saying is I LOVE ME ENOUGH TO BUY LOTS AND LOTS OF SHOES FOR ME.  Here is what I think (and maybe you disagree – it’s okay for you to be wrong! ha ha) If you really LOVE SHOES – then you would LOVE FOR SHOES to reach the highest pinnacle of love/need/blessing.  And if that were the case then you would possibly start to get excited about taking your “love” for shoes and your desire to spend money on said shoes that are loved and start buying them for others who DESPERATELY need them.

So what if everyone who “JUST LOVES SHOES” simply decided to even just spend half of what they normally spend on THEMSELVES and their own “SHOE LOVE” and bought shoes for a project such as Samaritan’s Feet?  How awesome would that be?  I bet something else would happen, that “feeling” people get when they purchase that “perfect/cute/designer – blah blah blah” pair of shoes, would be replaced by an even deeper feeling of JOY knowing that they had taken something they THOUGHT they “loved” and turned it into a true offering of LOVE  to someone else.

I don’t know – maybe you disagree – maybe I’m thinking crazy – but what if we “just loved others” instead of shoes?