I have an odd memory of when I was in the hospital that sticks with me. It was when I was in Intensive Care for several months only a short time after my diving accident in which I became paralyzed. On days when I was lucid and alert, I recall seeing my mother down at the foot of my Stryker frame with a small scrub brush, alcohol, and a bar of soap. She was scrubbing – and I mean, she was really scrubbing – the soles of my feet.
I said out of my grogginess, "Mom, what are you doing down there?"
Her reply to her daughter paralyzed in bed? She said, "Well, Joni, where in the world did you walk on these feet of yours?"
What can I say? I was your typical active teenager, back then, up until the diving accident. And I had spent most of my teenage life walking around the house, walking around the back yard, the community pool... all in my bare feet. And it seems that after years of so much barefootin', the soles of my feet were grimy and calloused with dirt way down deep under the ridges.
With my feet hanging out of the end of the Stryker frame, there in Intensive Care, my mother filled the long, lonely hours scrubbing the bottoms of my feet – feet that she knew every nurse examined, probably very critically, every time they'd pass by my bed.
Thing was, I never really knew my feet had dirty calluses. I never bothered to look much at the bottoms of my feet. Even if I did, I'm not sure if I would have taken notice. I don't think I would have cared. That part of my body was hidden out of sight. I was more concerned with the pimples on my chin everyone, myself included, could see.
But good old Mom, she cared, she noticed. And she did something about it. And all this brings me to the point behind Psalm 19:12 where it says, "Forgive my hidden faults (O Lord)... may they not rule over me."
You see, the spiritual person has enough sense to occasionally look, so to speak, at the bottom of his feet. The person who is in tune with the Lord is sensitive enough to know that everyone, himself included, hides secret faults, or hidden sins. And the wise person is the one who doesn't mind the Holy Spirit taking a scrub brush to those sins. Why? Because the Spirit of the Lord cares, He notices. He is willing to do something about those hidden faults... faults that, if we don't confess them, have a way of ruling over us.
By the way, I haven't been walking around in my physical bare feet anywhere recently. No calluses down there now. But this little story about my mother has a way of making me mindful of those secret, hidden out of site, spiritual parts... the grime on my soul that needs to get cleaned. And the same might just be true for you.
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 93176
© Joni and Friends