Sole Hope and Rosemary Infused Peach Lemonade

I joke with her on facebook and instagram, this woman just exactly like me only different.  She's in Dallas, Texas and I'm in San Diego, California; she's raising girls while I'm raising boys; she's the color or milk chocolate and I'm just the color of milk (no matter how much chocolate I eat.) Wynter and I met in South Carolina last fall at the Allume conference for Christian bloggers and ended up walking with mutual friends to a restaurant just down the road.  We sat across the table from one another, at the far end, up against a glass pane window, and both of us put up our menus.  But God, in His Grace, put the allegoric menus down in our lives, and said, "I'm placing this order for you."

And He did.  He ordered up an unlikely friendship when she ordered cheesy grits and shrimp, and I marveled, "Yes, Ma'am I'll have the same."  Then I ordered a glass of Rosemary Infused Peach Lemonade, and this petite little person that was suddenly starting to look and sound just like my own self hollered over the din, "Me too.  I'll take one of those."  And we locked eyes and knew something had just been forged - something that state lines, color, and the vast differences between raising boys and raising girls can't keep separate.

We slurped down those drinks, nodding emphatically because it was good.

good.

Good, like how God looked down on all He created and said, "That's good."  Well He created this new friendship too, He ordered it up when He ordered us to lower our menus and raise our glasses to sisterhood.

And we've joked, like I said, on various social media threads ever since.  Now I'm following her all the way to Uganda with Sole Hope, a ministry to children in impoverished communities, offering care for children's soles as a means to get in and minister to hurting souls with the love of God.

There on the other side of this world she's bringing shoes and smiles to children who've run too long with jiggers in their feet.  I'm reading about her travels and seeing the pictures she's posting of flesh torn up by poverty, nakedness, and the disease of this sin-stained world that reaches from here to there and all the way around the other side.

This woman, who's holding another mother tight, is bringing me along to see just how far God takes this radical love and knits people together.  Two women without menus or walls or different languages coming between them - because God can cross all lines when hearts are involved. This world isn't so big when boundaries, barriers and borders are all under His sovereign hand.  And heels and healing and health aren't so impossible with Him either.

And I got to thinking about feet; hers and mine and theirs, and how they are all beautiful to the One who imagined skin and toes and walking... out of clay.  And I thought of Wynter Pitts going, and this woman above smiling, and me here on the other side of the globe taking care to teach her own children about the Good News of a boundary abolishing God amidst first world problems; worn out shoes, and a trip to the mall to buy another size up.

"How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" (Romans 10:15)

Again and again I've thought of this verse as pictures of her trip fill my Instagram feed.  When I saw the picture of the feet, the one there above, the Scripture-truth of Romans 10 morphed into this:

Blessed are the feet that show the Good News by bringing shoes to these sweet feet.

More boundaries fell hard as I thought of the Good News, how it's not always sharing four spiritual laws or walking someone down that old "Roman Road".  The Good News is every road, every road from here to Uganda, where men and women walk into villages and towns, neighborhoods and cul de sacs with hearts open to love.

Put that on your feet, walk that out from Dallas, to San Diego, on to Greenville, and all the way to Uganda and back again. Walk it out with feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the Gospel of Peace.

Are you ready to shod your feet in that?  To drink that Rosemary Infused Peach Lemonade with a woman different than you in most every way but what's most important?  Two hearts beating love in two different breasts...  Two feet walking love on two different roads.

Dear Lord, Help us to walk the Gospel out right where we are today.  Loving and breaking down barriers by the power of your Holy Spirit, that we might walk together throughout this earth with feet wrapped up right and tight in your Gospel.  - Amen

Looking for practical ways to bind up the broken hearted by binding up broken soles?  Partner with Sole Hope as they set up a permanent home in Jinja, Uganda.

All these amazing photos by www.garyschapman.com