Muck & Mire, Mom & Mud

ould but ultimately deciding he didn’t have the strength to pull his four-year-old brother out. 

I knew it would have to be me. 

I tied up the dog, ordered my other two kids well away from the edge of the mud pit, and I tested the proverbial muddy waters. The foot of my gym shoes began to sink immediately. So I took a deep breath and pounced. 

I skimmed over the mud for two steps before landing by my son. I then bounced from foot to foot like a lunatic to keep my own feet from sinking too deeply, while I grabbed both his hands and pulled with everything in me. 

After what felt like forty-seven minutes, the suction broke with a loud POP! He shot out of the mud, leaving his boots behind, and I flung him towards solid ground, my own feet sinking every second. By some miracle, I was able to retrieve his boots and wrestle my own feet out of the mud, all without falling on my butt like a well-recycled America’s Funniest Home Videos clip. 

By the time we both sat down on a nearby dry log, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. Literally four minutes into this magical “hike” I’d envisioned, my son’s socks were soaked with muddy water, my own shoes were coated with thick mud, and we were still close enough to the parking lot that we could see our car. 

I quickly thought through the scenarios. We could pack it up, call it a failure, and go home. Or, like my older two voted from the peanut gallery, we could keep going. After a deep breath and some fruit snacks fished from the bag for my crying youngest, I decided we should press on. I pulled my mittens off and put them on his feet before jamming them back into his rain boots. I jammed my own hands in my pockets, and we pressed on. 

Despite the mitten socks and my chilly fingers and being down one fruit snack pack so early in our venture, our time at the state park was actually pretty fun. The kids climbed fallen trees, the dog got full of burrs, and we eked every ounce out of a beautiful day, earning every ounce of that hot chocolate on the way home. 

I remember thinking back to younger Liz, New Mom Liz, who would have probably sat down on that log and cried herself, before packing up her mislaid plans and heading home in defeat.

I was proud of the mother I’d become...
an improviser, an extemporizor, a Subduer of Mud. 

My shoes never came quite clean after that. There is a small ring of brown, just above the sole, that serves as a testament to that day. It’s those dirty shoes I think about when I read the first few verses of Psalm 40. The writer David describes himself as stuck, waiting patiently, but stuck. Different versions of the Bible use words like “slimy pit,” “mud and mire,” “miry bog,” and “deep mud” to describe the setting, the state of his heart, his angst and turmoil. 

In the Psalm, he is stuck in these dire circumstances, and waiting patiently, but calling, just like my youngest called out to me that day at the state park. David tells us that the Lord heard his cries.

And I picture God like a mother, running at the sound of David’s voice.

I see God, standing at the edge of the mud pit, weighing the options, knowing the only way out is in. 

Verse 3 tells us that God lifts David onto a rock, giving him a firm place for his feet, and the Psalm goes on to describe how David crafted a new song in praise of the rescue. The Psalm doesn’t describe God after that point, but I imagine God, his child lifted to safety and security, but ever after having his own stained shoes. 

I wholeheartedly believe that God meets us in the mud, that He finds us in our pain and sorrow, our guilt our shame, and enters into it, with both feet. Ours is an empathetic God, not a lofty, white-bearded Imperial Ruler, removed as far from the everyday of his people like the Sultan in Aladdin. Nor is God a religious elite, hiding behind the veil of the temple from the unholy. We read later in the Bible that Jesus is called a Great High Priest but is one who can relate. Who can empathize...

The God of Muddy Shoes. 

If you're feeling stuck, will you let me know? It can be a simple reply with the word "stuck" in the subject line, or you can share as many details as you feel comfortable with. I will pray for you, just as I do for myself, that you will look up from the miry bog and see Jesus, with muddy tennis shoes, right next to you. And that whether He is lifting you out and setting you on a rock, or if you are in the Not Yet time of waiting for deliverance, that you will know that God is there with you and can empathize with your every thought and feeling. I'd love to pray for you if you are feeling this kind of stuck.