I showed up at church one Sunday recently in pain.
The night before, I had slipped in the kitchen and hit my foot—hard—against a chair.
When I woke up Sunday morning, my foot was blue and my little toe was swollen. I gingerly put on the pair of shoes that I thought would hurt the least. But, a number of people at church noticed that I was limping and asked what was wrong.
Everyone was sympathetic, but my good friend Susie took action. “I have a pair of shoes that you can wear until your toe gets better,” she told me.
Susie went home and brought me back a pair of slipper-like shoes, big and rounded, and I put them on immediately. I wore them every day for a week—even to the symphony—until I visited my podiatrist and he ordered a surgical shoe for my broken toe.
A good friend is someone who has the empathy to “walk in your shoes” and then give you a more comfortable pair of shoes.
–Joy