Black Shoes for Christmas
(by Cecil Murphey)
Instead of taking the plate, Mom shook her head slowly. She didn't look at me, but even at nine years old, I sensed something wasn't right. Before I could ask what was wrong, she removed her glasses and polished them with the bottom of her apron. "We won't have any Christmas this year."
"Dad's working again," I said. He had been sick for three months but had gone back to work after Thanksgiving.
"There…isn't…any…money." She burst into tears and buried her head in her apron. Dad's first check had gone for rent, groceries, and gas for his car.
Mom picked up her purse, fumbled inside the money section, and emptied its contents on the kitchen table. A dime and three pennies rolled across the checkered oil cloth. "That's all the money until after Christmas when your dad gets paid again."
"God will give us what we ask for," I said. "See, Mrs. Garbie [my Sunday school teacher] says we should pray."
"I…have…prayed," she said as fresh tears came.
The answer seemed simple to me. "Mom, you have to tell God exactly what you want, and then you'll get what you ask for."
"Sometimes we don't get what we want."
"My teacher said we would and she knows. So you'd better make a list and pray."
Probably to humor me, Mom pulled a stub of a pencil from her purse and sharpened it with a paring knife. On the back of a calendar she wrote our names and listed a toy for my two brothers. "Now what do you want?"
"New shoes," I said. Even at that age, I was the practical kid in the family. "And I want black ones."
"What if you get something else?"
"No, I'm going to get black ones." Our school principal wore black shoes with metal taps on the heels. When he walked down the hallway, I liked to listen to the clicking of his footsteps. I didn't know anybody whose shoes shone so brightly. I wanted a pair the same color. "I'm going to ask for black and that's what God will give me. Mrs. Garbie said so."
The sole of my brown shoes had come loose on the right foot, and I finally cut it off. By the next day I had worn a hole through the inner sole and my socks as well. I stuck pieces of cardboard into the bottom, but they wore through after walking in the wet snow.
I didn't know much about praying, but I told God about the principal's black shoes and that I wanted a pair like his. "They don't have to be that nice. I just need shoes. And God, just to be sure you know, I want to tell you again, I want black."
When Christmas morning came, we all gathered in the living room as soon as we finished our oatmeal. We didn't have a tree, but Mom had hung red and green strips of crepe paper over the windows. Her eyes filled with tears, she handed my two younger brothers and me a small bag of candy. Mom began to sing "Silent Night." When she was sad, she often sang hymns.
My dad didn't say anything. He kept his head down while he tied and re-tied his shoes.
Just then a Salvation Army truck pulled up in front. My brother Mel ran to the door. He brought a fat, smiling man into our living room, who handed Dad three large boxes.
"We didn't ask for help," Mom said.
"Somebody told us," he said. At the door, he smiled again and said, "Maybe it was God."
"It was!" I yelled. "God told them!"
My brothers had fun pulling out boxes and trying to figure out who they were for. I waited for my shoes. Mel handed me a box of checkers, but I wasn't much interested; I only wanted my shoes.
Soon the boxes were empty. "Where are my shoes?"
"I guess there aren't any," Mom said.
"I asked for black shoes. Why didn't I get them?" I couldn't cry in front of my dad, so I stomped my foot.
"Sometimes God just doesn't give us—"
"Maybe he took them to the wrong house." Tears stung my eyes, but I wasn't going to give in.
"Everything doesn't work out the way we want," Mom said and stroked my shoulder.
"God promised!" And as far as I was concerned, I had done what Mrs. Garbie told me and God hadn't kept his promise. I had been so certain about the shoes, and now I didn't know what to do. "I'll wait," I said. "Maybe the truck will come back soon."
No matter how often I ran to the window and looked outside, the Salvation Army truck didn't come back. No one else brought gifts.
Mom cooked Christmas dinner of chicken, cranberries, and sweet potatoes from the food they gave us. I didn't want food; I just wanted my shoes. Every time I heard a car, I hurried to the window.
Finally, just before dark, I walked to the end of our snow-covered street to see my friend Chuck Baldwin. Since I wasn't going to get my shoes, I didn't want to be home where I'd keep thinking about them.
Each year for Christmas, Chuck's father bought rebuilt shoes for the family—shoes brought in for repair and never claimed. I went into their house and took off my shoes because my feet were cold and my right foot was soaking wet. I rubbed my toes to get them warm again.
"Look," his mother said and pointed to my shoes.
"I didn't mean to make a mess," I said, embarrassed about my tracks on her linoleum floor.
They whispered something to each other, and Mrs. Baldwin went into another room. When she came out, she handed me a pair of shoes. "If you can wear them, they're yours."
I stared at them. They were black! Although rebuilt, they had been polished so nicely they looked new. I held them up to my face and smelled the polish. "They'll fit all right!" Those were my shoes and I knew it.
"We got them for Chuck, but they're too small," she said, "and the man won't take them back." She said Chuck could wear his brother's shoes from the previous year.
My left foot slid right in. I put a cold, wet right foot into the other. I tied the shoes, stood up, and walked around. They were a perfect fit, just as I knew they would be.
Minutes later I raced into our house. "Look, Mom! God gave me the shoes after all!"
Mom looked up and smiled. It was the brightest smile I'd seen on her face in months. Tears followed her smile.
I walked around the room to show off my shoes. "See, just what I asked for. And God even gave me the right color."
At that age I didn't know much about God and stopped attending Sunday school shortly afterward. But I never forgot about the black shoes at Christmas. Years later when I reached crises in my life, that simple miracle became one of the factors that enabled me to open myself to God.
