Monday, January 17, 2011

Holes in the soles of my shoes

I have holes in my shoes. It's unfortunate, but not uncommon for Missionaries. Add in the fact that, over the past couple months Bozeman got a fair amount of snow, and that past couple days have been mid 40s, it is quite wet out there. Puddles everywhere. So, the water goes right through the holes, which are of course in the soles of my shoes, and gets my socks all wet and cold. Not pleasant. By the end of the day, they are so wet I could probably wring them out and fill up a glass with all the water that comes off. Pretty ridiculous, but it feels really nice to have those wet, heavy socks off my feet.
Now, to relate this to the Gospel.
We all have holes in our souls (see what I did there?). We all sin, and do dumb things that we know we're not supposed to and we know the Lord wouldn't approve of. And when we do these things, it's like stepping in a puddle with holes in our shoes. We get wet socks, and it's really uncomfortable. We have feelings of guilt and shame, and it makes us feel uncomfortable to do certain things. As we go through life, we'll constantly be walking through puddles, and constantly getting our socks soaking wet. But, there's hope. There's always that opportunity to peel those wet socks off and take them off, and enjoy no longer being weighed down by them. This is, of course, a metaphor for repentance. By repenting, we can get rid of those things in our life that are weighing us down, making us feel guilty or uncomfortable, and are just causing us overall problems. Granted, after we put on that fresh, dry pair of socks, we're just going to walk through more puddles and get our socks all wet again, but there is always another pair of dry socks we can put on. All we have to do is peel off those old ones, and start fresh.
Ya gotta love repentance!

1 comment:

  1. Nice analogy. We all have weaknesses, but God gives us weaknesses to become humble. He then provided a way for those weaknesses to become strengths. http://lds.org/scriptures/bofm/ether/12.27?lang=eng#26

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