It was a half mindless scroll the day I came across the posts of a friend, I have literally known her as far back as I can remember. She was our babysitter one summer; she drove a fancy blue trans am kind of car; her mama taught me every Bible song from childhood I know and made peanut butter cookies that might make the Pope use profanities. Susan, our babysitter introduced me to Prince and “Raspberry Beret.” Truth be told, back then I didn’t even know what a beret was, much less how you would make one from raspberries, but I knew you could get one like it from the second-hand-store. Susan was with me the time I was swinging and accidentally swallowed a wasp. My tongue swelled and I had a hefty antihistamine dose that caused me to wake up from a nap wondering if I had skipped the summer and already turned 8 years old.  

Through the gift of social media I can keep up with Susan now, and she had taken a trip across the world. Again in full disclosure I won’t lie. I was a tad jealous. Susan was checking one off on my very own bucket list, however, to my satisfaction she had and was posting magnificent pictures to the social media. My mindless scrolling had turned from pausing to stalking. I was enthralled with her pictures and then I came across one with a caption. It asked if anyone knew what the apparatus was located next to the toilet. I smiled to myself, I am somewhat cultured after all, and I have watched the 1988 film “Big Business” so many times I can quote lines verbatim whenever the mood strikes, which is precisely where I learned about just such an apparatus, and “It’s called a bidet.” I even said it in Bette Middler’s voice. 

Then I read the next line in the caption, “It’s not a toilet or a bidet, it’s a foot washing sink.” I stopped cold. I examined the picture, stretched my fingers across the screen so I could get a better look and then I remembered Susan was in the Middle East, the land of my King. 

I immediately translated the foot washing sink in my head into a “footwasher” and then I went backwards in my memory. It was Easter week some years or a year ago and again  I was mindlessly scrolling again and a picture or a text question with a graphic background asked the question: “If you had one day left to live what would you do?” I paused and began to hypothetically answer the question, and then I read the second half of the statement, “Jesus knew and He washed feet.” That statement hit me like a ton of bricks. Jesus on the last day he was to live gathered his people around Him and he washed their dusty, stinky, dirty, sand covered, aching feet. Jesus, fully man and fully God, sinless and perfect on the last day He lived got down on the floor and He was a footwasher. I came back to the present in my mind and I examined the modern day footwasher more closely. I reasoned that feet still get awful dusty and dirty in the middle east and out of modern convenience, placed next to the modern day commode was a footwasher. Low to the ground, humble, and waiting to be used and I realized My King really did come not to be served but to serve and He has called me to do the same, to be a footwasher.