Our Adoption Shoes

I don’t know if I’m the only person who does this but there are certain movies that I’ve probably seen 100 times and if they come on tv…..I can’t help myself but watch them again. Forrest Gump falls into this category. I love that movie. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen it but if it was on tonight and I stumbled across it, I would tell Shannon…..”I just want to watch this next scene…..give me five minutes”…..cut to three hours later, Shannon’s asleep on the couch and I’m wondering where the time went.

Forrest Gump is full of great little one-liner quotes and one of my personal favorites is him talking about shoes. It goes something like “Momma always says there’s an awful lot you could tell about a person by their shoes. Where they’re going. Where they’ve been. I’ve worn lots of shoes. I bet if I think about it real hard I could remember my first pair of shoes.” Anyone who knows me knows that I love shoes. I have several pairs of shoes and all of them have some sort of sentimental value to me. I have a pair that Shannon bought me on our first Christmas. I have some that I bought while I lived in New York right after college. I like them all but some are definitely more special than others. If I were to sort them all out by their story, the pair I wore on Dec 19th would have a good one.

Before I tell you about that particular pair of shoes……first let me tell you a little about Shannon and I. Shannon and I were married in August 2004 and one year later we moved to Springfield, Missouri. In July 2009 we were accepted into the Ethiopia adoption program with America World and officially began the process of adopting our first child, Baby G. We always knew from the beginning of our marriage that adoption would be a part of our family, the uncertainty was in the details. We both grew up with a heart for missions and volunteering with an organization called Royal Family Kids Camp, a summer camp for foster kids. In fact, it was at these camps that the Lord planted a desire in both of our hearts to adopt. But not only that, it was at a Royal Family Kids Camp in 2003 that God brought us together and we started dating, in which a year later we were married.

Ok, back to December 19th. Shannon and I ran in a half marathon to raise money for our adoption. It was the toughest, most wonderful experience I’ve ever had. We had several friends and family participate with us which made it that much greater. Leading up to the run, was a lot of training and most of all, a lot of prayer. Endurance running is hard enough even with months of training but add the cold temps in December and it is almost impossible….so we thought. God provided us with wonderful weather. I believe the high that day was 48, which when your running and your heart rate is up feels like 68. Add in a lot of sunshine with not a cloud in the sky, that’s like running on the beach. Looking back I know God worked a miracle that day. He also continues to work miracles, up to this point we have raised $5000 towards our adoption. People have been so supportive. We are still getting contacted by people who knew about the run and want to help. It has been a total blessing.

So the shoes I wore that day were a part of a wonderful story. They played a huge role in our adoption. I will never toss those shoes. This may seem cheesy, but I remember at one point during the run when I was close to the end, I think I had about two miles left and I was thinking that this was probably the last long run I would ever have in these shoes. I had been training in them for so long that they were really starting to wear down. I know they are just shoes but a part of me was really sad about that. They were like an old friend or something. They had been there for all the early morning runs leading up to the race. They had been good.