Chaplain’s Column

The unraveled shoelace

As my wife pulled into our driveway one afternoon after work, our twins were playing in the front yard. It appeared something was attached to one of their shoes, so she got out of the car and called him over to check it out. Surprisingly, it was just his shoelace.

His lime green shoelace was a matted-up mess with sand spurs intertwined.

She asked him how in the world it got like this, so he proceeded to tell her. He said, “Mom, this morning when I tied my shoes, the end had come off and I couldn’t get it in the hole of my shoe, so I just tied them the way it was. Then at school it started to come apart more and when I got home Jewel (our dog) started chewing on it and it tore apart.” He had gone to school with a half-laced shoe and it didn’t bother him one bit.

What started as a shoelace with no plastic end, started raveling and became a “tore up” mess!

His shoe wasn’t even tied tight because he couldn’t lace it up all the way. So mom made him change and give her the messed up shoe. She took it in the house, cut off the frayed end and burnt the end with a match.

“MOM MAGIC” back to new! Now he could lace his shoe and no more frayed ends. How much like our lives is that shoe string?

The prophet wrote that God has a plan for us all. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” Much like that plastic tip on the shoestring, God holds us together, so we can be useful in the purpose he has created us for. That shoestring was not working to its potential in the shape it was in. We had to cut away the mess and pull the ends back together.

How many times do we let little things in our lives get out of place and instead of addressing them right away, we overlook them until they become a “TORE UP MESS.” Until we pull all the loose ends of our lives together, we cannot truly be as effective in living the purposes we were created for.

Take a few minutes today… cut away those “frayed” areas in your life and “pull things back together.” Get focused, be intentional and live the purposes you were born for.

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