For the One Waiting For the Other Shoe to Drop

I once heard that the phrase “waiting for the other shoe to drop” originated from two-story living in early Holland, where wooden floors met wooden shoes. When a person dropped a shoe on an upstairs floor, anyone downstairs could expect an equally disruptive thud to immediately follow.

A quick Google search attributes the phrase to New York City tenement living in the early 19th century. Heavy work boots, thin walls and cramped living conditions do not carry quite the charm that Dutch clogs do, but that is often how reality works, isn’t it?

Either way, I’ve recently noticed something more dangerous than misunderstanding the source of our idioms. What happens when our idioms become our practical theology?

Recently I sat round table with a group of creative women. They shared projects and passions and progress. They shared ideas and engaged one another in the process. When my turn came to share they asked a simple follow up to my litany of work in progress , “And how is all of that going?” 

The answer was equally simple – really well. But that felt strange to say. 

I’m still a beginner at many of the things I do. I’ve only been writing and speaking for a few years now. My motherhood tenure is adding up a bit, but I’ve only been a mom to 4 kids for 6 years. I’ve only parented a teenager for a year, been married for 17. Most of that affirms the fact that I’ve only got my feet wet, affirms the fact that I’m a pro at pretty much nothing.

So I hedge, just a little, when these open-ended questions get tossed my way.

How’s marriage going? Well, great actually, but we haven’t survived parenting yet.

How is parenting a teenager going? Pretty well, actually. But he’s not driving, yet. We’re not really in the thick of things, yet. It’s not really hard, yet.

How is writing and speaking going? Good. But that’s just a part-time thing for me. I’m just a beginner, so I don’t feel as much pressure or expectation, yet. 

Do you see those qualifiers I often feel the need to tack on to everything – the yets I use like a quick disclaimer? 

It might make sense when I’m talking about my abilities and strengths because I am one very limited and fallible girl. I am still learning and tripping and there is much I don’t know ahead of me. But when I believe I have traded my weakness for His strength (2 Cor. 12:9), when I believe I am a blood-bought daughter of the King, my disclaimers become my practical theology. Not the the truths I believe on Sunday morning, nod at during sermons, but the ones I choose to believe, choose to live out, daily.

Are you following me here?

I speak pretty boldly about God’s provision in my life, seeking to give Him glory for all the good here (James 1:17). But when I can’t speak the same about the future, can’t wildly proclaim His goodness over what is ahead, something is off, friends.

My tentative replies to these women, spoke loudly of a disclaimer I have been placing not only on my abilities or my future, but in God’s goodness. 

And my question becomes – what if only trusting God with my right now, is not really trusting God at all?

Because that is what I like to do. I like to trust Him with moments within in my reach. I like to trust Him with moments that I have a grip on, things I can see. You bet I’ll give Him credit for what He has done and then I’ll hedge a bit about the future. 

But faith only in what we see is not faith at all, is it?

 

“For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” Romans 8:24-25 (ESV)

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

 

I want to be a women who boldly declares His goodness not only over this moment, not only over my past, but over my future. This is not the prosperity gospel, friend. This is bold faith. I’m not saying it’s all going to be pretty. It won’t be. Hard times will come. I’m saying that on the other side of wherever we are right now –  it will be good because He will be there. I want to proclaim that.

Scary times and exciting times will come. 

Uncertain and unknown times will come. 

Hard and easy, loud and quiet, full and lonely times will come.

And He will be there.

  

On my quick search of that shoe dropping idiom. I read this prospect:

“Now imagine that the residents in other rooms hear this shoe drop, knowing exactly what it is. They then wait for “the other shoe to drop.” The resident, though, perhaps realizing what a loud noise he just made, places the second boot softly on the floor instead of dropping it. This leaves the other residents anticipating a noise that doesn’t come, but they keep waiting, not wanting to be caught unaware and started.”

Imagine that, living and waiting for a shoe that never dropped. Knowing and believing a sea-parting God, a redeeming God that works all things, all things, all things, together for our good – we don’t have to live that way. 

This must become more than verses we read or sermons we hear, friends. This must be the theology we live daily because this is who He is. Good. The faith of generations demands that we declare this, mamas – faith over our future, His goodness in our future. Boldness and access with confidence though faith in Him. (Ephesians 3:12)

May it be so.