Oh Good, Your Feet Stink Again!

Let them sacrifice thank offerings. Let them talk about what he has done as they sing with joy. 

Psalm 107:22

I never thought I’d be thankful for stinky feet.

That fateful evening, just before I left the house, he sat on the sofa stretched out long, poking me with his bare feet as he tried to persuade me to let him try a new recipe. Even as I pushed those stinky toes away, I loved them. He was my boy-child growing to manhood, but he would always be my baby. I squeezed those toes and walked out the door, leaving him to create.

The next time I saw my child several hours later, he was in the emergency room, fighting for his life. In the coming days, I would wonder if he would have toes again—If he would ever be able to walk again.

That was exactly three years ago. Today, I am walking the streets of New York with that boy. We are calling today Redemption Day. And when we get back to our hotel room tonight and shed our shoes, I’ll breathe in the stinky smell of gratitude, hard-won and battled for, made possible by the God who was with us in the fire.

Sometimes gratitude doesn’t come easy. It’s not always a pleasant list of thankful things, a discipline of positivity to stave off discontentment.

Gratitude can be a costly sacrifice. But for the pilgrims who will come into God’s presence with such a gift, sacrifice leads to shouts of joy. #Thanksgiving Share on X

The first sacrifice our trauma demanded of me was possession. That child, that life, that house, were all mine before The Night that Changed Everything. When faced with the real possibility of losing all, I was thrown upon the mercy of the One who really owns it all.

Control was soon to follow. In its place, helplessness and powerlessness permeated every area of my carefully curated life. The control I so cultivated dissolved like the facade it was, revealing the only One who has complete control.

Security toppled next. Beneath the rubble of my carefully constructed bricks of Good Parenting, Godliness, and Doing Everything Right lay a Rock, and He held.

Understanding fell with a crash. I had to make a choice: would I trust God when I did not understand Him? Or would I remain stunted, clinging to stale faith that could only believe in God when I thought I understood His ways?

So many, many things were destroyed in the fire that night. Things that needed to go in me, in my family. And as the wind of God blows those ashes away, we are beginning to see what He is building. And we are grateful.

And in my heart, when I think of gratitude, I will sing this funny joy song, hard-won and oh-so-costly. Oh, good! Your feet stink again!

Lord, I bring you a sacrifice of thank offerings today. May my song of joy rise over the streets of this city and reach heaven’s ears. Amen.

@audreycfrank