045: Foot washer

April 1, 2010
John 13:1-17

My friend Amber is kind of a girly-girl. Not in a way that I find annoying or irritating, but rather in a way that makes her seem like being a girl is just quite natural and easy for her. I decided I should utilize Amber’s expertise and experience to be my moral support as I expand my horizons further into the world of girly-ness.

I asked Amber to come with me to get my first pedicure this week.

To set the stage, I really have no personal bubble. Or rather, I’m sure I do, but I’m not quite sure where it is yet. I’m a hugger, so I have no problem hugging complete strangers. When I lived in Rome and Spain and Morocco, people greet each other with kisses on the cheek, so I adopted that gesture as well. It doesn’t bother me to have people stand close to me or even make physical contact with me. I take jiujitsu classes and I think that might be part of what has contributed to my lack of personal-space barriers.

I didn’t expect a pedicure to be a big deal in terms of feeling spatially invaded. It wasn’t. What always made me uncomfortable when it comes to pedicures or manicures or these girly-girl salon-type experiences is that I feel like it’s weird to have people serve me – to wait on me.

Restaurants kind of feel the same way for me. One of my Scottish professors once discussed how in France, people take pride in their jobs. In America, contrarily, people tend to be ashamed of many jobs. Waiting tables is one of them. We in America treat the waiters with sympathy and pity, to some degree, rather than allowing them to have respect and dignity in what they do.

This phenomena has rubbed off into my behavior patterns. I felt a little weird going into a salon and having someone perform what I feel is sort of personal hygiene on my body, even though I did pay a fair price. Why do I feel that way?

The pedicure was nice – I’m not ticklish and I like physical contact with people, so what isn’t to love about having someone massage my feet and make them look pretty?! – but the whole time a small part of my brain was thinking about how weird it was to have someone sitting at my feet, washing them and lotioning them and painting my toenails.

Then I realized, this is like what Jesus did! Obviously not the bright red nail polish, but he did wash his disciple’s feet. He got down onto the level of their feet and washed them with his own hands.

How humble my Savior is! How gracious and giving and serving! Having the pedicure brought Jesus’s acts into a whole different light.

I want to learn this from Jesus. I want to learn that God can bless and certainly doesn’t look down o those who do what we’d consider “lowely” jobs, when we do it for His praise, honor, and glory…