Those Shiny Black Shoes

We don't watch a lot of t.v.in our home but we do like Finding Your Roots on PBS. Watching it last night brought memories from seventy years ago.

My great-grandparents lived about a hundred miles from us so I didn’t get to see them very often. One time when I was about five years old, we drove to their home. They were old people but they were still very active. My great-grandmother's family came from England and bore the Cromwell name. Her parents had come over aboard a ship from England. When my great-grandmother fell in love and married my great-grandfather, her parents disowned her because she had married a commoner. She didn’t seem to let that bother her though. She and my great-grandfather moved to the small community of Zack, Arkansas and she became the postmistress. She was a petite little lady with white hair wound tightly on her head. The few times I saw her, she was always wearing an apron and a dress that came almost to the floor. My great-grandfather ran the general store in their community and it was such a fascinating place.

Great-grandmother was a wonderful cook. I remember especially her big biscuits she always made for breakfast. She would bring them to the table with a pitcher of molasses and a platter of ham stacked so high I was sure it would fall off the plate.
 
On this day, I stood in the general store and gazed into the big glass case at the front of the store. They had licorice candy but I didn’t like licorice. There were peppermint sticks that I did like but this day, I wasn’t interested in candy. What took my eyes that day was a pair of beautiful ,shiny, black shoes. I remember my great-grandpa walking up to the counter; picking me up and holding me close to the glass.

“Would you like to have a stick of peppermint candy” He asked. I shook my head so great-grandpa sat me down, went around to the back of the case and got a piece of peppermint candy.

“Here you go, Young Lady”, he said as he handed it to me.

While I licked on the peppermint stick, I continued to stand on tip-toes and look longingly at those shiny, black patent leather shoes thinking those were the most beautiful shoes I had ever seen.
Great-grandpa noticed that I was staring at those shoes. So, he went around to the back of the case, slid the door open and lifted those beautiful shoes out.

“Would you like to try these on?” He asked.

Would I like to try them on? You bet I would so I scrambled upon the seat of the cane bottomed chair setting nearby. Great-grandpa knelt down, unlaced my shoes and slipped those beautiful shiny, black, shoes on my feet. And, wonder of wonders, they just fit! Then, he gently lifted me to the floor.

“Now stand up here and let’s see how they look.” Great-grandpa said.

He took me by the hand and we walked across the old wooden floor. I couldn’t take my eyes off those shoes. They were truly the most beautiful shoes I had ever seen. They were almost like Cinderella’s slippers because I could see my face in them. Great-grandpa twirled me around and around.

“Now, let’s see if you can walk in them by yourself,” he said.

They were slick on the bottom so I walked very carefully across the room. I couldn’t wait to show my Mother and Daddy.
 
“My, what do you have on your feet?” Mother said. Before I could answer her, great-grandpa came up behind me.

“I think those shoes were just made for her feet. Would you like to have them?” he asked.

Was I hearing things? Did he actually ask if I would like to have those beautiful, black, shiny shoes? I don’t remember anything else that happened that day. I was too busy dancing around in those shoes. I knew right then what a Fairy Princess felt like.

I have often wondered just want happened to those wonderful shoes. My granddaughters would have loved them!

We know that material things will not bring lasting happiness. But, that day in my great-grandpa’s store, I was happy. I loved those beautiful shoes until I outgrew them and they were put away.
We can be rich in many ways. Things like good friends, a loving spouse, a job that we enjoy can bring happiness. Those are not material things. There is a difference between that kind of happiness, material happiness, and spiritual happiness. If we believe in God, life has meaning because life on this earth is not the end but we are promised an eternal life in the presence of God, our Heavenly Father. My beautiful, shiny, black, shoes brought me happiness for a time but nothing can compare with the happiness I have in Christ.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” John 3:16-17 NKJV