Description
That Shoe Was Long Gone
Early summer 1972—the Payette River, near Lowman, Idaho. Six-year-old Corey Chivers was on fishing trip with his family and friends. A grand adventure for a small boy.
While the adults fished, Corey went down to the water’s edge, where “he couldn’t resist taking his shoes off and fluttering his bare feet in the icy cold water.”
After some time, Corey’s mother decided that she and her children would gather up and move farther down the river where the fishermen had moved in search of a better spot. She called to Corey to put on his shoes and come.
Corey sat struggling to pull dry, dirty socks over wet feet.
“Unbeknownst to him, he had nudged one of his sneakers into the water. With its flailing laces the shoe, now turned toy boat, floated slowly and then more quickly out into the river. Then suddenly, the tenny runner was off and pulled into the moving water and swept up and sent out into the rapid current.”
Helplessly, Mother and son watched as the shoe disappeared into the roiling white water of the river. What to do now? There were many days left of the camping trip and it was going to be a hard matter for the lad to get around in the rough terrain without a shoe.
But the shoe was gone. There was no way to get it back. Together they began making their way downriver to join the others.
“They had not gone far when Corey’s mother looked back to see how the shoeless boy was faring. Among the willows she saw him kneeling, with his head bowed and arms folded in prayer. She instinctively knew he was praying that he would get his shoe back. His mother watched disheartened knowing that her son’s sincere prayer wasn’t likely to be answered. Surely, he would be disappointed. There was no chance of ever recovering the lost item from the unforgiving river. That shoe was long gone.”
“After some effort and slow going,” Corey and the rest of the family caught up with one of the fishermen in their party. He was standing in the river, perhaps, a little astonished, holding his rod and showing off his prize catch—surely one for the record books.
“There snagged on the hook was Corey’s run away shoe dangling from one of its laces. The fisherman neither knew of the plight of the shoeless boy, nor had he seen the shoe in the river. He had merely felt the hit on the end of his line and began reeling in what he thought was an Idaho Rainbow Trout.”
Maybe, on that memorable day he didn’t catch the fish that would go down in the books to be remembered evermore, but he did assist in a miracle. From that day forward, it was a witness to Corey and his family “that the Lord hears and answers a child’s prayer. Heavenly Father loves his little ones! He cares not only for the small sparrows, but also for small lost shoes.”
Source: Christa Prows
