THE PRETTY RED SHOES

     1.

When I was a little girl, about seven or eight years old, I learned an important lesson.   Back in those days children often wore a type of shoe called a saddle shoe.  They were called ‘saddle shoes’ because the white shoes that tied up with laces had a blue piece of leather across the middle that looked a little like a horse’s saddle. 

  Each fall when I had grown out of my old shoes, my mother would buy me a new pair of saddle shoes for school. I wanted to take such good care of my new shoes.

 I can remember coming home from school, carefully wiping off my shoes and then getting out the white shoe polish.  I had to be very careful not to get the white polish onto the blue part of the leather. 

After the white polish was dry, I would get out a soft cloth and rub them until they shined.   Then, I would set them by the door so that I could wear them to school the next morning.   I wanted to please my parents by having my shoes last all year.   Mostly I liked having the cleanest, whitest, newest looking shoes in the class.

 

One day I went into town with my father.   In one store there was a bin that had many pairs of shoes thrown into it.  The storekeeper wanted to sell these shoes quickly, for very little money.  My father looked at some of the shoes and turned away.  But I saw something that I couldn’t take my eyes off of.  Underneath some of the other shoes was a pair of saddle shoes.   These saddle shoes were not white and blue.  These saddle shoes were soft red velvet with  black leather saddles. I thought they were very beautiful.  I picked them up and stroked the fuzzy red toes.

 “Daddy”, I begged, “can I please have these shoes,”

“ You already have good shoes,” he answered. 

“But they don’t cost very much and I love them!”  I pleaded

My dad looked down at his only child,  then took the shoes from my hand and headed over to pay for them.  I was so very happy that day, and never dreamed that the shoes had such a lesson to teach me.

   

  2.

     I held the shoebox tightly all the way home then ran inside and excitedly opened the box to show my mother.  Her eyes widened, and she gave my father a strange look.  I could tell that my mother didn’t think that my shoes were very beautiful.  But she smiled at me and said that I could wear them for play.  

    I took the shoes to my bedroom and lifted them carefully out of the box.  I stroked them with my fingers, then raised one shoe and rubbed the soft red velvet on my cheek. Very carefully, I untied the lace of one shoe and slipped it on my foot.  It was perfect.  That night, I could hardly sleep; all I could think of was my beautiful red shoes. 

    The next morning I put on my beautiful new shoes.  I walked carefully down the hall to breakfast.  I had to stop part way down the hallway to see if any dust was getting onto the bottoms of the soles.  As I ate, I checked to see if any of the toast crumbs were getting onto the red velvet.  It wasn't long before I was walking to school. 

     Even though it was a nice day out the road seemed so dirty.  It was awful.  And as I walked I had to make sure that my foot didn’t bend and make marks on the red velvet. That made my feet hurt and I was almost late for school because I was walking so carefully.  In class I had to sit just right to make sure that one foot didn’t rub against the other. I was so afraid that something would happen to my shoes that I didn’t pay much attention to my teacher and ended up with extra homework. At recess and lunchtime, I just stood still and watched everyone play because I didn’t want anything to happen to my pretty shoes.  It was not a happy day.  I felt so worried all the time. Somehow the pretty red shoes were not giving me the happiness that I thought that they would.  But I was still too silly to understand.

  At last the school bell rang and I carefully began my journey home.  I had given myself a list of rules:

The soles of the shoes had to remain flat so that I didn’t bend the velvet.    

 The bottoms couldn’t get dirty or wet.

I couldn’t play or walk with my friends in case they accidentally splashed me or even worse, stepped on my pretty red toes.

3.

 

    When I arrived at home,  I took my shoes off at the front door, and carried them into the bathroom. There I checked them over for any little hint of dirt, and carefully wiped the bottoms of the soles clean.  Then, I took out the shoebox from my closet, carefully wrapped the shoes up in the tissue paper, and closed the lid.  In their box, on my shelf, the beautiful shoes were finally safe.  They would not go to school with me again.

    Over the weeks and months that followed, the shoes would only be taken from the closet to be stroked, admired and wrapped up once more. 

The school year ended and summer holidays began.  Not once did I remember the pretty red shoes.  School began for the next year, and I still did not remember the shoes.  I grew taller, entered a new grade, and made new friends. The beautiful shoes were forgotten. 

 

   The next spring, my mother asked me if I would clean out my closet.  I obeyed and before long came upon the shoebox.  My heart skipped a beat as I remembered the beautiful soft velvet shoes.   I quickly took the lid off the box and unwrapped the tissue paper.  There they were, just as perfect as the day that they came home from the store.   I lifted them out and set them gently on the floor.  I slipped my feet out of my slippers and looked over the bottoms for dust.  Then, I pointed my toe and slipped it into the shoe.   Well, I tried to slip it into the shoe. Something was wrong!  I felt panicky. These weren’t my shoes!  They didn’t fit!

 I glanced into the closet to see if maybe there was another box. The shelf was empty!   I stared into the box and pulled out the other red shoe; maybe it would fit?    Suddenly I knew the sad truth:  I had grown out of my shoes!  My wonderful shoes!  My special shoes that I was saving to wear on some special day-  were too small for me!

     No matter how hard that I tried to fit my feet into them, I knew that I would never wear them again.  I remembered how hard it was to keep them perfect.  I remembered how sore my toes got when I tried to walk to school without bending my feet.  And I did it, and the shoes still

 

4.

 

didn’t have a single mark on them,  but now I wasn’t happy, I was very sad.

I thought that the shoes would make me happy, but I had been miserable.

   As I sat there thinking about how I had wasted the shoes that I had loved so much, my mother came into the room.

  “ I guess those shoes don’t fit you anymore, she said , we’ll have to find someone to give them to.”

 My heart dropped inside of me.  Even though they didn’t fit, I still didn’t want to give them away!

 

  Over the next few days it seemed like dark clouds shadowed over me. 

I was fighting with my thoughts inside.  I was so confused.   I had loved the shoes so much, that they had given me no happiness at all.

Now, my mother was going to give them away!

 

   Soon, a new family moved in next door.  There were a lot of children, but none of them were my age.  I saw my mother looking over towards the new family and then at my wonderful shoes.  I felt angry!  I had worked so hard to take care of the shoes, and they had made me unhappy.  If she gave them to one of these children, they would never take care of them, and I would be even unhappier.

    That night before I went to sleep I read the words in my Bible:  It is more blessed to give than to receive.  Acts 20:35

    I knew that God was trying to teach me that I needed to stop trying to keep the shoes for myself and give them to someone who needed them.   How could I ever do what was right?

 

  The next day, I took my shoebox next door and sat down on the grass beside a thin young girl who was younger than I. I had decided that I wanted to please God instead of pleasing myself. The young girl watched in wide-eyed silence as I lifted the lid and unwrapped the red shoes.  She looked at the shoes, then up at me, and a huge grin grew across her face. Then I handed her the beautiful red velvet saddle shoes.

 

5.

  Her hands trembled as she tore off her worn shoes and pressed her dirty sox into the perfect insides of my wonderful shoes.  Laughter and breath came in happy gasps as she paused to look, then danced, and jumped and twirled over the grass.  Instead of watching the shoes, I found myself looking at her face.  Her joy filled me with happiness, and the friendship that grew brought me many years of joy. 

    I can’t remember the shoes after that day.  In fact I never noticed them again.   I’m sure they ran in the rain, and jumped puddles, scuffed down dusty lanes in the summer, and likely were passed down to little sisters as they grew.  But I noticed the change that occurred in me.  I had learned that being selfish only made me very unhappy! 

    From that day onward, I looked for every way to share and give to others around me, and I found that it really is more blessed to give than to receive.  In the end, the beautiful red shoes have given me much  happiness.    ©

                                                                                                                                                           Cc RBelcher