Remember me as The Sandaled

 



This is a photo of the organizer on the back of our bedroom door.  As you can see I have "a thing" for sandals.  I love to wear sandals.  My collection is smaller than usual.  Mickey, my young male dog, likes to eat them.  He is stealthy and quick to snap the strap so the sandal is no longer is functional.

Deuteronomy 25: 1-16 is a collection of curious instructions on crime and punishment, sharing your grain with the ox treading for you, a brother marrying his brother's widow, the improper method of rescuing your husband in a fight and using only one set of weights and measures.

These verses seem totally unrelated to each other and maybe to modern life.  Yet today they remind me of mercy, justice, fairness, honesty, integrity and my legacy.

Several years ago I attended the funeral of the father of a coworker.  After the grandchildren told stories of him and gave a compelling description of his character, I thought "Gee I wish I'd know him."

I frequently regale my son and my brother's daughters of stories of "MaMa", my mom and their grandmother to preserve her legacy.  I keep some of her possessions in the hope that her grandchildren will cherish these seemingly valueless objects to remind them of her character and personality.

In Deuteronomy 25: 5-10 God gives the instructions to brothers to marry their deceased brother's wife so the deceased brother will have a child to carry on his name and legacy.  God also gives the warning that failure to do so has consequences.  The consequence may not seem like punishment to us but in that culture to be known as "The Unsandaled" must have had quite a sting.

Today my sandal organizer will become a reminder to me to be merciful, to be just, to be fair, to be honest and have the reputation as a woman of integrity.  In today's world this goal can be a challenge.  Too many times in a week the thought of "this is not fair" crosses my mind.  God tells me to be fair in an unfair world.

My sandal organizer will be my reminder to build and protect my legacy by living my life according to God's love and way (The Sandaled), not the world(The Unsandaled).  I want to be known as "The Sandaled" because of how I live my life and not because I have a large collection of sandals!  (Thanks Mickey for keeping the collection number low.)