Recently, while waiting to begin our missionary training, I took a position working in a warehouse so that I could continue to provide for my family. I was grateful to get this position. It can be difficult to find a company willing to hire a person for only a short period of time. But God is good. He continues to provide for us, test us and teach us life lessons through everyday experiences, preparing us for the missionary life ahead. One life lesson God taught me was through steel-toed boots.

Clomp, clomp, clomp.

“I’m sure not used to wearing cinder blocks on my feet,” I mused to myself as I stomped around the warehouse in steel-toed boots—one of the requirements for my new factory job. “These monsters are heavy!”

Hired for the Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. shift, the company abruptly changed shift schedules a week into my new job. When forced to choose between keeping my job and keeping the Sabbath, I left the factory, but not before being reminded of an important truth.

After a few days in my steel-toed boots, I started getting used to them. I imagine that if I were allowed to continue working there, I would eventually have gotten to where I would not have noticed them at all. That is, I would not have noticed them until taking them off in the evening and feeling like I was walking on a cloud.

Reflecting on this, I realize that too often we carry around burdens of sin, bad habits, and worldly distractions. Carried long enough, we get used to them and do not even realize they are weighing us down and impeding our progress to the Celestial City. Like all of life’s challenges, the answer is in God’s word.
“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith;” (Hebrews 12:1–2).

I am sure that I will have more challenges along the way, but God is always faithful, and He will provide. Thank you for your prayers.

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