Ben's Shoes

Ben's Shoes

I have learned that the Lord is aware of our needs, and because He loves us, He helps and blesses us in both large and small ways.

After our business failed, I began teaching again and my husband took employment as an electrician at a hotel in the countryside. Due to a lack of transport, he could only come home once or twice a month. This left me to run the home and look after our five children by myself.

One afternoon I collected our seven- year-old son, Benjamin, from school. As he climbed into our car, which was billowing smoke from the back, he looked very despondent as he showed me his school shoes. The front had a gaping hole. My heart sank.  I knew we didn’t have the money to replace the shoes, but our school is strict about appearance. Something had to be done. I prayed, “Oh God, what am I going to do? We do not have the necessary money.”

I instructed Benjamin to wear his white sports shoes to school and wrote a note to his teacher, telling her that we would buy him school shoes the following week and hoping that by then my husband would be able to solve the problem.

The children and I discussed the matter, and it became clear that we should not buy Benjamin a cheap pair of shoes that would cause him to slip or would be hard and uncomfortable, as he had to wear these shoes every day for most of the time. The following afternoon I went to our shopping centre and had a strong impression to go to a specific shop. I thought of going to a less expensive shop to look at shoes, but this thought was overridden by my first strong impression.

When I went to the shop I had felt impressed to visit, I went straight to the shelf of boys’ shoes. I saw only one pair of black school shoes, marked at R120. My heart began to beat a little faster. Were they size five, Benjamin’s size? They were! I asked the assistant at customer service to reserve the shoes for me and then phoned my husband, telling him about the shoes.
Wendy Hammond1.jpg

On Saturday my husband was at home, and we went to collect the shoes. The cashier punched in the code and then looked startled. Without saying anything, she moved to another computer and again punched in the code. I thought, “Oh no. What if the shoes are gone?” But after doing this a third time, she looked at me and said, “This is an end of the range pair and is no longer showing up on our system. You can have the shoes free of charge.”

I stood there in amazement and told her what a blessing it was, and that I must have done something right to deserve such a blessing. I have a testimony that this blessing came from paying our tithing. We were able to use the shoe money to take care of many other family needs.  I know Heavenly Father is watching out for His children and blesses us when we keep His commandments.