Watch where you put your feet

 Who would ever think that a foot stool designer would create a foot stool that puts holes in your feet?  I guess one is suppose to be smarter than the stool and know never to get near the foot stool with bare feet.

The foot stool that puts holes in your feet

   We were living in Alabama as missionaries a few years ago and it's really hot there, actually its the humidity that is so high it's almost unbearable in the summer.  Anyway, going barefoot around the apartment after work was the norm.

   One night John accidently tripped in the dark and stepped on the bottom of the foot stool and oh, did he holler. The leg of the foot stool went right through the bottom of his foot.  It took his foot weeks to heal and even longer before he could fit a pair of shoes on his feet.  Moral of the story:

Keep your feet on the right track:

one slip up and it can cause you pain and sorrow.

John's foot after slipping from the foot stool

     Telling this story reminds me of one of my adventures when I was 14 years old.   I went for two weeks to the New York World's Fair with a youth group, from our church.  We rode on a bus from Ogden to New York and stopped along the way to see all the church and historical sights.  We camped out each evening except when we were in the big cities then we would stay in a hotel. 

      As we checked into our hotel in New York City, a group of girls decided to go see the famous Macy's department store.  One of my friends and I joined the older girls and thought it would be great fun to see the big city.  When we got into Macy's someone said "when the bell rings at closing hour, meet here at these big pillars."  So the two of us took off to browse around. 

      It was very easy to hear the big bell ring announcing the closing of the store.  We went to find the big pillars to meet the older girls and realized there were big pillars everywhere.  Neither of us knew where to go, we just kept looking around for something familiar.  After awhile we decided to just find our way back to the hotel on our own, we didn't even know which of the dozen doors to go out of and we didn't know the street we entered on and neither of us paid attention to the name of our hotel. 

      Oh dear, we didn't know where we are staying, even if we found a police man to give assistance we couldn't give him any information that would help us.  After a silent prayer I said, let's just go out these doors here and see if we can find our hotel.  As we were walking down the street, with rushing crowds of people all going home and trying to get out of the city, we realized we were in quite a predicament and began to get pretty scared, then I suddenly turned my head and caught the back side of some of the girls in our tour group going in the opposite direction.  We ran with joyful hearts across the street to join them. 

      We didn't dare tell them we were lost and that we didn't even know the name of our hotel.  That night was a night I will never forget as the noise from the city and the flashing lights of the signs in front of our window reminded me all night long how blessed I was to find our church group and be safe inside the hotel. I never realized at the time how much trouble my feet could have gotten me into.

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, 

so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep

 physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path,

 we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.

Henry David Thoreau