I Have Big Feet

I have big feet. In middle school I tried to deny it. I would wear shoes that were definitely too small for me and as a result I have one too many memories of me falling on my own volition in the hallways at Fred J. Carnage Middle. In elementary school I was proud of my above-average stature. I was 5’1’’ in the third grade. Coincidentally that was the same year we had to read the novel Sarah Plain and Tall. Can you guess what my nickname was? By fourth grade I was taller than my mom and joked that she was too short to ride the rides at the state fair. In fifth grade I towered over everyone, including my teacher at the ripe old height of 5’6’’. When I got to middle school, my height slowed down a bit while my feet thought it best to keep growing. They decided that a women’s size 12 shoe was a good stopping place while the average women’s size is a 7. Immediately I was thrown into never being able to shop in department stores for shoes but having to settle for places where shoes were not the most durable. I grew so tired of the difficulty of finding shoes that I decided I would only wear tennis shoes, men’s tennis shoe’s at that. Being a 10 ½ in men’s shoes is much easier than being a 12 in women’s. That’s how I spent high school. I had one pair of black sandals with a square heel that I wore whenever I had to dress up.

Now, I can’t blame what happened in high school entirely on my shoe predicament, but it did not help matters. The lowest self-esteem I have ever experienced was in high school. My low self-esteem was not only depressing but crippling. I was at the point of committing suicide. I didn’t like ANYTHING about my body. The top complaints were bad acne, overweight, big breasts that got too much attention, and huge feet. I walked cowered over ashamed of my body, not wanting anyone to notice but assuming everyone did.

Recently, God has been healing my heart of different hurts from my past. His latest project has been getting me to accept my big feet. Psalms 139:13-14 says “I will praise Thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made, marvelous are Thy works and that my soul knoweth right well” (KJV). This verse literally saved my life in high school and here God is using it again to teach me that He knows how He made me, and He loves how He made me. The New Living Translation says this, “You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.” Not only does God like my big feet, but my height, my face, my crazy-loud laugh, and a whole host of other things that I used to try to hide.

God has encouraged me to embrace the things about myself that others might look down on, or even that I deemed ridiculous. The thing about becoming new in Christ (2 Corinthians 5) is that not only does God renew and redeem your spirit but the whole you. In Christ there is freedom to be the “you” God made you to be. I can’t be any other thing then what I was designed to be. I don’t buy men’s shoes exclusively any more but save up and buy cute shoes at Nordstrom. I rejoiced so much when last year I bought my first pair of “big girl” black pumps. I have big feet and that’s ok. I also have a big God who made me. Cheers to that! Now, excuse me while I go shoe shopping!!!