What's the craziest thing you've felt guilt over?

Confessions of a flip flop sinner

Have you ever heard of story slams? Or the moth podcast?

It’s basically a competition for 8 minute story telling.

We have a local branch here in Spokane and it’s lots of fun.

I’ve never gone up on stage to tell a story but I have thought about it.

We love story slams.

Our latest one was this week and the theme was “guilty.”

Six people told stories of times they felt guilty (one of which was my friend who absolutely killed it).

It got me thinking of all the many many things I’ve felt guilty over through the years. 

Rich and I were talking after the story slam of the silliest thing we’ve felt unnecessary guilt over. 

It had some competition but it came down to a pair of Old Navy flip flops for me. 

I’ll tell you my guilty tale but first I want you to think of the craziest thing you’ve felt unnecessary guilt over. 

Got it? Ok please pretty please tell us in the comments.

Here’s mine:

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I plead guilty of open-toed heresy.

It’s August 2006. I am mid-way through my two and a half month stretch in the Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT. I waffled enough back and forth on whether or not I really wanted to serve a Mormon mission before I went in, that once I finally made it, I was IN IT.

In it to win it. I wasn’t there because it was expected of me or someone else wanted me to be there. I was there because I wanted to be there.

And I wanted to be a perfect missionary, which you accomplish through exact obedience. No big deal.

So when other sister missionaries complained about having to wear tights in August? Not me. Bring on the heat.

When other missionaries would push the boundaries of our 10:30 bedtime, staying in the hall until 10:50? Not I. Lights out at 10:29 for me thank you very much.

But for all my Herculean rule keeping, there was one rule that put a chink in my otherwise flawless armor of God.

Every day after lunch we had an hour of exercise time. You had two choices: 1. you could go to the indoor gym to lift weights, walk in circles or play basketball or 2. you could play sand volleyball outside. I almost always opted for the latter.

Either way, you needed to wear tennis shoes and socks during exercise time. While missionaries were encouraged to bring a pair of flip flops on their mission for showering or in-house meandering, there was a strict no flip flops allowed rule outside your apartment.

Because your toe skin is…… bad? I guess? I dunno, the details are fuzzy.

For everyday converting efforts, this no flip flop rule didn’t bother me in the slightest. Happy was I with my closed-toed life. However, for sand volleyball? Man those flip flops would have been niiiiice!

As it was every day after lunch I would take off my tights, change into my exercise clothes, put on my socks and tennis shoes, walk to the sand volleyball court, take off my socks and shoes to play, put them back on to walk back to the dorms only to take them off again to shower and change back into tights.

The wasted minutes of this song and dance! The wasted energy! Most days I tried to put my obedience blinders on and not think about it, but with each grain of unnecessary sand I would find embedded into my socks, the irritation grew.

Causing me to ask my MTC teacher for a possible sin exception. I explained the inconvenience, the on and off, the sandy toes. I asked if perhaps sand volleyball could be an exception to the no flip flop rule.

No dice. There would be no exception to the footgear commandment.

Ok then. Rules are rules. I resolved to put it out of my mind. Not today Satan.

Most days I could stay on top of my wicked thoughts. God’s ways were higher than my ways after all. He understands things about the evils of sandals that my puny human brain simply cannot comprehend.

I would be an example of the believers. I will go, I will do, I will not wear the flip flops to play sand volleyball and God will reward me for my obedience. There will probably be a plaque in heaven waiting for me in the next life “Celeste: passed the sandy socks trial of faith in the face of great temptation.”

But one day, the spirit was not strong in me. My companion was buggin’, the tights were itchin’ and when lunch ended and I reached into my 2 foot by 2 foot closet space intending to grab my tennis shoes, there was sexy face of my Old Navy flip flops batting its eyelashes. Seducing me with whispers of “C’mon. It’s no big deal. No one will even notice. Put me on. You know you want to.”

My personal Jezebel those flip flops were.

I was weak. I succumbed to their temptations. I put them on.

The whole walk out of the building and onto the courts, I pretended to be fine. I kept my eyes high lest anyone be suspicious. Business as usual. No sensual secret on my feet. Nothing to see here.

And? No one noticed a thing. I came, I volleyed, I conquered. I got away with it!

And oh! The bliss of slipping on those flip flops with sandy feet! The way the sand just whisked away on its own! No longer trapped in by a sweater cocoon.

I made it all the way back to my apartment enraptured in foot freedom heaven when I looked in the mirror. Oh no. Who was this brazen Deliliah hedonist? I hardly recognized her. Is this who I wanted to be? Someone who disobeys God for their own selfish convenience? For what? A few minutes of sand-free toes?

No. This is not me. I would repent of my feet blasphemy.

I went to the bathroom to be alone and I told God I was sorry. I went through the 3 R’s of repentance: remorse, restitution, reformation. I would go my way and sin no more.

(note to reader: this is a silly story but hand on my heart I repented of wearing flip flops that day).

And so it was. Day by day I earned back that heaven plaque for the sandy feet trial of faith. No more did I give into the temptation of the flip flop.

God gives his hardest trials for his toughest soldiers.

And I would be tough.

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Ok that is my story of the craziest thing I ever felt guilt for- your turn!