Good Friday is coming and she’s been on my mind.

She was a little quieter than usual, and maybe a little bit more serious too. She came into the room with a basin of water and a towel over her arm. What she was about to do seemed familiar in the imaginary sense, but none of my imaginings prepared me for this reality.

A little apprehensive at first, but I knew I had to get my feet in the water. It wasn’t comfortable and neither was it natural. But it was freeing. Something about it seemed so wrong, it must be right. Looking at her from where I was seated, I was looking at her upside down.

So this is what He meant.

After she washed our feet, we got on our knees and washed her feet. One by one, little digits and gaps. She didn’t ask for it, but we knew we had to follow. Not in the obligatory sense, but in the I-know-this-to-be-true sense.

That night, we washed each other of our skewed ideas of what it meant to love. Like a child again, someone else was washing me. Like a child again, I was learning and relearning, ready to love and be loved. It was as though we were ‘baptizing’ each other into each other in all our vulnerability.

We belonged.

I found a different kind of grandeur.

This was years ago, but it’s still ringing for me. Thank you for showing me what it meant to follow and be found.