New Shoes

Think back to when you got your last pair of shiney white tennis shoes.  Shortly after school started this year, Backman picked out these new shoes.  He loved the shiney newness of them and each day would wipe off any dirt or imperfections, determined to keep them looking new as long as possible.  About a month or so after getting his new shoes, he went to a carnival with some of his friends.  It had been raining a couple of days prior and so the ground was quite soggy that evening.  Without even thinking, he put on his new shoes and headed out.  Once he got to the carnival he realized that it was going to take some work to keep a lot of the muck off his prized shoes.  Somewhere during the course of the evening, one of his friends misstepped and his foot landed on top of Backman's shoes leaving mud and muck ALL over them.  (To Backman's credit, he did not let this put a damper on his evening.)  When he returned home at the end of the evening, he took the shoes off before entering the house and set them in the slop sink in the laundry room.  A couple of days later I heard some noises coming from the laundry room and went to check to see what was going on.  There was Backman scrubbing his shoes and laces.  He worked for over an hour, even down to using a bleach pen on the laces before putting them in the laundry with a load of whites.  After working until he attained the desired results, he set them neatly on the floor in the corner to dry while waiting for the laces to come out of the wash.  Over the next few days as he went to check on them, you could feel his sense of accomplishment.

Last week we were reading scriptures as a family and had a great discussion on 2 Nephi 9:14 about how the righteous will be clothed in a robe of purity and righteousness.  We talked about the peace and joy that come from knowing that we are pure.  The following morning I was reading on my own and as I read in 1 Nephi 15:34 about how no unclean thing can enter into the kingdom of God and thought about our discussion on purity the previous evening, Backman's newly cleaned shoes came into my mind.

None of us is going to get out of this carnival called life without getting some mud and muck on us.  We try and avoid it and keep ourselves clean, but it is inevitable that we will get some on us.  The hope is that it is just a little splatter here and there and not the mess that comes when a friend steps on us.  However, it is what we do after getting the mud and muck on us that really matters.  Because most of the time it is just a little splatter it is easy to just overlook it as we tuck "our shoes" away for the evening.  Sooner or later, however, we realize that because we kept ignoring those little splatters that our prized "shoes" no longer look clean and new.  At this point it takes us a long time to scrub and bleach and work to get our "shoes" looking clean and new again.  If we take the time to scrub a little when we notice the splatter, it only takes a second or two to return our "shoes" to their original pure state.

I have a series of quotes that rotate through on my screen saver on my computer.  Interestingly enough, last week during this time my computer froze up and the quote on the screen was one that I had never noticed before during the rotation.  I do not believe it was a coincidence after reading it.

"The object of this life is not to become perfect.  That comes later.  The object of mortality is to become increasingly pure.  Purity is key to drawing upon the power of the Lord.  Purity is always a characteristic of a true follower of Jesus Christ."  (Sheri Dew, God Wants a Powerful People, 186)