O Farewell My Pride, I Shall Miss Thee

[Alternate title: If the shoe fits wear it, if you can find it, because the mighty uncomfortable road to hell is paved with good intentions.}

As you might imagine, getting six kids ready for church every week is a stressful event under the best of circumstances. During our weekly public presentation of the La Family, it's nice if everyone is wearing underwear and has been bathed in the last month. People are looking. Really they are. Every time I convince myself that no one cares what we look like, someone blows a hole in my delusion with a well placed comment. Or by an entire ad lib addition to a talk.

This week we had underwear, everyone was freshly bathed, and we even had clean church attire. And we were on track for a timely arrival. I was feeling good. Right up until shoe-time. Those shoes—those blasted, infuriating shoes—were our dilemma this week.

We do have a central location where the shoes belong. It is just not working out as well as I had hoped it would, not normally a big deal. I hardly ever wear shoes. I live in California. It's comfy to go shoeless.

Anyhow four of us had shoe crisises yesterday. Three of us experienced a happy ending to our crisis. Alas not I: I went to church barefoot this week. After thirty minutes looking for a pair of my own shoes that matched, I gave up. I found a dozen single shoes, and not a pair among them. What are the chances? Pretty high around here actually.

My teen and I wear the same size shoes so there are our two black holes bedrooms that swallow unwary soles. The baby loves shoes too. She carries them hither and yon, dropping one yon, the other hither. Sometimes I find my shoes in the toy sty box, sometimes outside, sometimes in the towel cabinet. Not this time.

This time I gave up looking for the shoes, bit the bullet and went to church shoeless. Attending church is more important than my pride. Right? Jesus would rather have me at church barefoot than blogging at home barefoot. Right? I need to go to church. Right? I can be reverent and barefoot. I can sit with my feet under my chair and no one will notice. Right? Right?

We came in twenty-five minutes late and sat in the very last row. The children immediately scattered to the far winds. Tithing slips. Bathroom. Drinks. In vain did I motion for them to return. So I took a couple deep cleansing breaths and settled down to hear the pleasing word of God, tucking my feet discretely beneath my chair.

The Stake President arose, began to praise punctuality for and reverence during Sacrament Meeting, wearing one's best in church, polishing one's shoes, etcetera. Um, I polished my feet with one of those little pedi-egg things on Saturday. I was wearing the best clean dress I owned. I intended to be on time. Surely, surely that counts.

I was squirming and thinking of the bad luck of my shoes going AWOL on our annual reverence Sunday. And then...and then...he said that he had gone on long enough and that he needed to move on to the talk he had written. ARG! This wasn't a planned talk. It was ad lib, ad hoc, directed right ad me.

I fought the urge to run home. I bit the bullet harder, held my head up high, and walked carefully through the crowded halls to Sunday School. The closest available seat was a couple of feet away from the Stake President. I sat.

Oh well. It really is more important to be at church than to have shoes on. Still, I think I'll find my shoes on Saturday next week.