Introduction:
What happens when God asks you to do something that doesn’t feel like a good fit for you? What if it doesn’t align with what you know or your knowledge?
For me, it was writing a book.
For nearly ten years, I’ve heard God’s call to tell my story. He seemed to want me to share how I broke free from a cult. That single decision from my grandparents, changed the trajectory of my entire family. I’m not a writer. I don’t have formal training. I didn’t know how to do this.
So I tried everything I could think of. I hired ghost writers who took my money, but couldn’t finish it. I sent it to professionals who thought I was lying. They said I should write my story as a fiction. It was too dramatic to be real and would work better as a novel. I worked with editors who didn’t know what to do with it. Agents loved it, but said it wasn’t ‘polished’ enough.
Every path I tried led to a complete STOP.
For ten years, I felt God calling me to write this book. And for ten years, every attempt to obey that call hit a wall. It felt like God was contradicting Himself. He was asking me to do something, then slamming every door I tried to walk through. “God, I’m trying to follow Your lead,” I’d cry out, “but where are You leading? Every path is a STOP sign!”
And I’m beginning to understand why.
God wasn’t going to let me write this story the safe way. This way had facts, but no feelings. It had drama, but no pain. Every door He slammed shut, was a door that would have allowed me to keep hiding. If a ghost writer wrote the words, the ghost writer would be my cave. If I wrote it as fiction, it would be distant. I could hide behind the words of “just a story.” If a professional polished my story, the raw edges could easily be smoothed out.
But doors kept slamming. He blocked every path that would let me tell you WHAT happened without showing you what it COST.
Because a true story, isn’t complete without the consequences. It needs to have what happened, but also how it felt. Not just the facts of following a false messiah. But also the heart-wrenching reality of what that does to a child, to a family, and to generations.
Now, the only door left open, is the one I’ve been avoiding. Writing it with the vulnerable moments. Those emotional moments that pushed me so far inside myself that hiding became my survival strategy.
I still don’t know if this is the right path. But it’s definitely the scary one. And maybe that’s exactly why it might be the one God has been waiting for me to write.
So here I go again, seeking to find understanding within all the painful moments. To show how the metaphor “Barefoot To Shoes” came about. How walking barefoot in the physical as well as in the physical affected my spiritual journey.
For most of my life, I’d lived in fear, feeling alone, trying to fix everything myself. I kept running into walls I couldn’t see over or through. I didn’t know there was another way.
I finally realized I needed direction. I needed to change my perspective. I needed shoes.
Physically shoes meant, hot cement didn’t burn my feet, or bee stings couldn’t get to the sole of my feet. Spiritual shoes meant accepting God’s protection, accepting Jesus, and walking with the Holy Spirit. But I found it wasn’t physical and spiritual. I had to put on shoes in my relationships, my emotions, and my finances. In every area of my life.
Ephesians 6 talks about having our feet “shod with the gospel of peace.” We can have all the armor, but without shoes, we’re just standing still. Not going anywhere.
These stories are about that transition, from barefoot to shoes. From fear to faith. From trying to fix everything alone to walking with God.
My hope is that as you read these stories, you’ll see your own bare feet. The places where maybe you aren’t wearing shoes yet. And maybe, like me, you’ll discover that shoes are available. The shoes of protection, direction, peace; in every step of your journey.
Other Posts with My Life Stories: