Have you ever walked in someone else's shoes?

Seriously. I'm not talking about swapping shoes with your best friend in high school or borrowing from your sister's or mother's closet. I'm talking worn dirty sweaty socks and shoes that are literally taken off of someone else's feet and put on yours.  (Please forgive me, Tom, when you are reading this for describing your shoes that way, but you were there so I know you understand.)

This is where my journey to starting Rescued Ones begins...on Ometepe Island, Nicaragua in July of 2010, halfway up the Maderas volcano on our way to the waterfall. Three of us left our mission team in Costa Rica to go meet up with Tom and learn more about his ministry on the island. I was the required "third person" and up until three weeks prior to the trip I was fighting with God about leaving Costa Rica, the team and all that was familiar and comfortable. God won and well fast forward back to the halfway point..

I was having difficulty hiking up the volcano and was overheating, so I stopped to dunk my head in a pool of water to help cool down. In the process, my flipflops were soaked and made the hike even more impossible. (Yes, I know, I shouldn't have been wearing flip flops, but my other shoes were soaking wet and molding  - another story all in its own). Tom pulls out a spare pair of flip flops and offers them to me. Because of the way they were molded to his feet, I had great difficulty walking in them, so here we are halfway up and as I'm feeling defeated and ready to give up, Tom says 'here wear these' and removes the shoes and socks from his feet and puts the flip flops on his own feet. You have to understand, I have this thing about feet, especially putting my feet into other people's shoes - I don't do it - not when the shoes are clean and dry and most definitely not when they soaked in sweat.  Oh how I was stretched in that moment. I can only imagine the look on my face.

As we reached the top of the volcano, something happened to me. I will never forget that moment. There was a short wall of a rock we had to climb up to get to the base pool of the waterfall. As I looked across the top of the rock my eyes were level with where the waterfall met the pool and my body started shaking. Tom thought I was going to collapse or have a heart attack and told me to rest, but I was propelled forward by a force that I could not describe, I was shaking like a leaf and could not stop until I was standing under that glorious rushing water. I had no idea what was happening to me, but I knew I never wanted that feeling to leave. Before we left we filled my water bottle from this spring fed waterfall and I drank some of the best tasting water I've ever had.

I have since learned it was a move of the Holy Spirit, an encounter with God, or what ever you want to call it. In the moment all I knew was that I was rocked to my core and I walked out of that place seeing clearer, feeling alive like never before and just changed. I knew I would never again be satisfied with my life as it was before that space in time. The old was shaken away like one shakes the dust out of a rug and a new creation was born. The Bible talks about living water and I was standing there being washed in that precious water inside and out.  The love of the Father was filling me to overflowing and starting a new thing in me. It has only increased over the past 2 years, so when He woke me up this morning with the words "the time is now." I knew immediately I was supposed to share what I have been previously unable to share publicly to this point.

So I ask again, have you ever walked in someone else's shoes? I pray if you haven't, that you get the chance and when you do, you realize the symbolism...It is not the other person or their shoes getting you to your destination - it is Jesus carrying you into your destiny. Sure there will be a process involved, these things take time, but every step of the journey is necessary. Sometimes you walk in your own shoes but sometimes you have to step into someone else's to see what you are missing or what is waiting. The past two years have been a journey, but I know I haven't seen anything yet. God bless all who read these words.