I thought I'd publish a version of something I wrote as an assignment recently. I get asked a lot about my journey, and I imagine more people speculate who never ask. So I thought I'd throw this one out there as well. These are my thoughts now after about four years of leaving the faith and starting over. I guess I should make a disclaimer for any of you who are close to my past, that this is fictional but based in truth. The events didn't happen exactly like this, of course. This work is representative of my thoughts and choices although not depicting them exactly as they happened. As the essay reveals, however, I find I have a lot to learn and I struggle with regret over lost time.
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| For good measure, a pic of me at the time, in the "outfit" intended to go with the shoes. |
"Only one life, ‘twill soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last."
My scripted sentences lined up on the page like students for morning prayer. Every morning, we stood: backs straight, heads up, eyes forward. We stood in our dark loafers and recited the monthly Scripture passage that was required to pass academically. This morning, something was out of place. It was me. Or more correctly, it was my shoes. My conservative uniform of white blouse with red and blue plaid skirt was accompanied not by the regulation dark loafers, but by flashy yellow pumps.
They were loud and brash, like I wanted to imagine myself. The golden shoes screamed as I pushed the doors open and stepped into the fluorescent lighted halls that morning. As I met the confused stares of classmates on my way to chapel, I quickened my steps and pretended not to know what they were looking at. I questioned the morning’s decision to break the uniform code and ducked my head a little. I could never be as loud as those bright pumps. They were not afraid to speak up. The shoes were bold enough to speak out against the ritual of girls kneeling before men to have their skirt lengths checked. They asserted that literature other than “Pilgrim's Progress” and the Bible were acceptable reading material. They pleaded that a young woman could find meaning outside of a life of ministerial or household work. And they whispered to me that it was okay for a girl to say what she thought.
The rebellious footwear babbled on through chapel--through the prayer that the students would be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. They mocked through the sermon as the principal reminded us about those who would die and go to Hell, never hearing the gospel, if we students didn’t do something about it. I sat quietly, and was ashamed of the morning’s choice, ashamed of my thoughts, my voice. But the shoes bore no such shame. They wouldn’t stop their buzzing and nudging and through the closing prayer. While some of my friends walked down the aisle giving their lives to pull sinners from the flames, I shushed and pushed the yellow pumps under the pew and out of sight. Finally, the day ended when a bright yellow slip of paper, exactly the same hue as the shoes, was placed on my desk. My presence was requested in detention. The bell rang, and my sentence began.
Only one life, ‘twill soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.
As black bled onto the page, I knew the golden shoes had beguiled me; betrayed me. They had diverted me from the desperation of souls dying around me. I had become shallow lately, interested in my own pursuits. I wanted to go to college. I liked writing. I wanted to travel and learn languages and see the world. But it was all fools gold. Only what’s done for Christ will last. As I sat writing sentences in my cubicle, I feared, or perhaps decided that my eighteen year old feet would never lead me, colorfully clad, to adventures, ambition, or pursuit of happiness.
I would graduate in May, marry in September and begin living the life I was created for. I would be a wife. I would go wherever my husband led to spread the gospel. Following his leading, I would prepare for service in the mission field of Mexico. I’d leave my family and all I had known to build churches and teach others about the follies of sin, and dreams and unordinary shoes. I would not attend college, with its humanist professors and its evolution-teaching atheists, waiting to prey on young Christians like me. Without further “education” I’d have everything I needed to carry out God’s work. By the time I completed the grades in my tiny school, I would have memorized six books of the Bible, along with a hundred individual chapters and multitudes of verses. On the other hand, if someone were to ask me about pop culture, classical literature or ancient mythology, I would be totally lost. I would not need to be able to relate to the temporary world around me. Secular inventions, such as art and music, all had their inherent discord with Scripture and the Christian lifestyle and had always been prohibited. Now I would make my own choices to keep myself “unspotted by the world,” as the Scripture taught. It was best to keep my mind focused and fill it with God’s word instead of man’s aberrations.
Careers were pursuit of self and were temporary. I would be pursuing something that would last much longer than any career. My treasure would be in Heaven, and on earth, I would see the result of my labor in the people I ministered to. However, as I plodded along in my loafers, I’d remember the distant yellow shoes and think about how maybe they had some good points after all. When I entered the mission field to share our brand of the gospel, I was prepared to see the desolation that “godless” lifestyles had brought to the masses. What I found in Mexico, however, was people who believed differently from me and yet were living happy lives, oblivious that they were missing what I came to share with them. I would begin to question the validity and necessity of the work I had given my life for. Little by little, the first part of the old detention sentence would call to me louder and louder: Only one life, ‘twill soon be past.
In my late thirties I would begin to wonder about the path I had taken. I would plead for God’s help as I faced issues of lust for the world that I had been able to withstand before. No answer would come from the heavens. I would be alone and fall into depression. I’d get treatment, finally, against my husband’s wishes, and would realize that sometimes the “world” had answers I needed and that sometimes I could make good decisions too. I’d begin to make even more decisions for myself.
This new quirk of thinking for myself would be met with the same curious gaze that had fallen on my yellow-clad feet twenty years before. This time, however, I would not hide my choices under my desk. I would keep asking questions, trying new things and looking for my own answers. It would be too much for some of my loved ones to grasp. In the end, I’d become divorced from my pastor-husband and shunned by my church peers.
Having little to lose, I’d start over in Austin and try a lot of things for the very first time. I’d date. I’d watch Seinfeld. I’d listen to Queen. I’d enroll in college. I’d get an entry level job. I’d start a business. I’d take classes in wild and forbidden subjects like . . . anthropology. I would find out that I love learning for learning’s sake. I would start making my life into what I envisioned for myself: a life of learning, experiencing, and teaching. A life with education, a career, and meaning. I would start working on my degree to make that happen. Twenty years from the momentous wearing of the yellow shoes, I would look back at my former life, not with regret that I didn’t do more for Christ, but that I just didn’t do more.
Detention ended and I took my paper to the supervisor’s desk, who symbolically tore it up and threw it in the trash can. Today, as I continue to pursue my education, career, and the broadening of my own knowledge and experiences, I have a mantra that informs me: “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past.”
