That is all. ™: Walk in My Shoes

I asked him to come in and sit down. He ducked under the doorway, hobbled over to a chair and sat down. I was amazed that he was able to fit in the chair and that it held him. It did creaked a little bit though. He looked rough. Right off the street for a few days, withdraw from whatever he was hooked on had already started to kick in. He was hurting. He told me that his feet were hurting him so badly that he could hardly walk. They had blisters and sores all over them. His shoes made his back hurt too. He had been wearing them for months. He started to say something else but then he started to cry. And I watched. I watched this 6’10, 400 something pound shell of a man with two pairs of shoes on his one pair of feet cry. He told me a lot about himself. I told him a lot about me. The only difference between me and this man were some inches and some pounds and our names really. He learned that I had walked in his shoes, or at least one pair of his two pairs of shoes, before. I asked him what size his feet were. He told me size 17EEE, but 18’s would work too and he could squeeze into 16’s for sure. I told him that I had no idea how to get shoes that big. But I would try. I asked him if he prayed. He said prayer never seemed to work for him because he really didn’t know how to pray. He could never remember the prayers he was taught. I said, “Right now, you and I are going to pray for shoes, because unless Jonathan Ogden walks in here and puts them on my desk, I have no idea how to get them for you. And since you don’t know how to pray you can just repeat after me.” And that is what we did. “Dear God, I need your help. I think I need a pair of shoes. If I really do need a pair of shoes can you help me find them? Amen.”

“That’s it?” He asked. I said, “Yep, that’s it. Now let’s see what happens.” He got up, shook my hand and hobbled out with his two pairs of shoes on one pair of feet and a little shot of hope that he did not have when he walked in.

Now it was my turn. I sat down in my chair. My eyes started leaking a little. I felt his pain and despair. I had known that once. I had been at a point where I had only hoped for hope before. I had no idea what to do. I needed help. I try to practice what I preach, so I prayed. “God, It's Tony again. Listen, I am out on a limb here and I got nothing to stand on. I will be needing your help with this one if that is possible. Amen.” That is how I pray these days. I pray like that because it works for me. Then I started thinking, despite the fact that when I think trouble seems to ensue pretty quickly. I was thinking of a plea to the shoe companies or calling some big fat guy stores and seeing if they had any size 17 EEE’s gathering dust. I was halfway through another potential big fat guys shoe scheme when my phone started ringing. I couldn’t answer it because I had to find this big fat guy some shoes, but I hate a ringing phone. So I picked it up just to stop it from ringing. I am insane like that sometimes. Especially when I am thinking. (Check back tomorrow for page 3)