Clean Feet

Yesterday as usual, I let my kids play for awhile after school at the school playground. The ground there is mainly gravel—lots of little rocks that are just small enough to get into your shoes or sandals and be very annoying. I let the kids play barefoot, and by the time we left, they had a nice little coating of dust on their feet.

I was going to have them take showers before bed, but they managed to successfully negotiate their way out of them. (They had had showers the night previous and we usually do every other night for showers...)

My five year old had injured her big toe a couple days ago, scraping off a layer of skin, so I informed her that she needed to have her feet washed at least so her toe didn't get infected. She sat on a counter in the bathroom and stuck her feet in the sink and I washed them one at a time. I did the same for my three year old son, because heaven forbid that Ella have to have her feet washed but not Cole.

Anyway, the whole exercise turned into quite a little spiritual experience for me. It was such a tender thing to wash my kids' feet in the sink, taking special care with Ella since she was worried about it hurting her toe. And of course, all that came to mind was Jesus' example from John's gospel in which he washes his disciples' feet.

It was "a moment" for me. And one of those deals where I understood in a better way the scripture, "Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end." And the beginning of that end was washing his followers' feet.

I don't know if my kids sensed it, but I really felt like a father last night, and was reminded of my Father's heart towards me in a new way.