Foot-washing and Other Uncomfortable Expressions of Love

Have you ever experienced a time when someone’s sincere, sweet expression of love for you made you feel slightly uncomfortable? Maybe even a bit embarrassed? Awkward?

Or perhaps you have received that kind of response when you gave someone a simple expression of love. Oh, sure, they may have gushed “thank you,” but their discomfort seeped through in their over-the-top niceness and too-bright smile.

Most of us would agree that love is the greatest gift.

We like to read novels and watch movies about it.

We like to sing and listen to music about it.

Those of us who are creatively bent may revel in penning poems or dashing off songs on the subject.

But why is it that in certain times and places, giving and receiving love can suddenly become something that we’d almost rather avoid?

I will never forget the time my twin Maria stood in the doorway of my bedroom and politely informed me she would be washing my feet. “Shell,” she said, calling me by the name she’d used for me since we were toddlers. “I can wash your feet, okay?”

We were 19 years old, living in British Columbia at the time with our parents.

I glanced up from the very good book I’d just been lost in while curled up on my bed.

As usual, a long French braid hung over Maria’s shoulder. A smattering of light freckles dusted her make-up free face. Her bluish-gray eyes gazed steadily at me as she clutched her Bible to her chest.

Only mild surprise stirred at Maria’s request. After all, she was my twin. We spent about 99 percent of our time together. I knew she’d been reading the Bible a lot lately. She must have now arrived at the New Testament account of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet.

Maria, being Maria, wouldn’t just want to read and muse on a story like that, at least not at this time in her life. Lately, she seemed to have become more earnest, more focused, more passionate than I’d ever known her to be before.

I glanced down longingly at my book. Truth to be told, I didn’t feel like getting my feet washed. I didn’t want to peel off my warm socks and get my skin all wet and chilled. Cocooned in a quilt, I felt perfectly cozy and yearned to finish my book.

Below that, though something else in me resisted the idea of my twin cleaning my feet. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why, but I just did not want her doing that.

I could relate to Peter in that moment, the disciple who balked at Jesus’ same act of service.

“What about mom and dad?” I said hopefully as I looked back at my sister. “They’re around, aren’t they?”

“They’re napping. Come on, Shell. It won’t take long and then you can get back to your book. You could even read it while I’m washing them.” Ah, my twin. She knew me too well.

I also knew that when she had an idea in her head, Maria could be very earnest about accomplishing it, especially at this time in her life. It’d be no use to keep arguing with her.

Very slowly, my face cloudy, I dragged myself off the bed. In one hand, I clutched my book tight and in the other the ends of my blanket wrapped round my shoulders. In that moment, I was the most reluctant receiver of a foot-washing you ever met.

And so, my twin washed my feet. I can still almost feel the coolness of her palm on my calloused heel as she dabbed the towel on the top of my foot to dry it.

I didn’t need my feet washed. There weren’t that stinky or dirty. I’d showered last night and would be showering again that day. Maybe a pedicure or a foot massage would have made sense. But foot-washing? Completely unnecessary.

With her actions, however, my twin told me I was worth her time to fill a basin with warm water, kneel in front of me, gently lift each of my de-socked feet into the liquid, and proceed to cleanse my clean feet.

That was the other part that bothered me about the whole experience -- the kneeling. Maria didn’t seem at all fazed by how she sacrificed her dignity, doing that. I mean, we were twins. Equals.

In fact, truth be told, I’d always looked up to my twin. She’d been born a few minutes before me. Plus, she stood about a half inch taller than I.  Deeper than our difference in height or birth times, however, something about her personality, a quiet poise, had always made me feel like she belonged just a touch above me.

Yet, here, she knelt, totally fine with getting on her knees before me like some servant.

My sister’s love in action left an imprint on my spirit that day.

And I wonder if that’s why we resist some expressions of courageous, simple, sincere, no-strings-attached love. Why we feel uncomfortable around it.

Because we sense, deep down in our spirits, even if we can’t put it into words, that love in action changes us. That’s just what love does. It leaves an imprint on us. It’s like the other person dabs their hands in paint and presses them all over the walls of our DNA. And we can never get that imprint off. Ever.

As it says in 1 Corinthians 13:8a, “Love will last forever” (NLT).

Singing about love is safer.

Writing about it is safer.

Reading and watching about it may be safest of all.

But giving and receiving love, that’s where it gets dangerous.

After my twin washed my feet, it was like my spirit got infected with something. I suddenly couldn’t help but want to go out and do something loving for someone else.

Maybe not wash their feet, but something that involved giving up a little of what I had given – perhaps my time or things, my dignity even.

Indulging myself with cookies and books suddenly didn’t feel as satisfying as it always had.

I think this is the “dangerous” part of real love in action – it can’t help but cause more love in action, and that causes more love in action, and so on and so forth. It’s like swinging one bell in a cluster of bell chimes; that one bell sets off another, which sets off another, which sets off another.

My twin died in car accident at the age of 21, two years after she washed my feet. I miss her to this day.

The imprint of that moment when she got on her knees in front of me and poured water over my feet will be forever pressed on my soul. And I hope and pray that as I’ve gone on to share simple, sincere expressions of love with others, the imprint has been left on them too.

The deaths of all three of my sisters has tattooed on my spirit that what matters most in this life is love, our love for God and our love for others.

I always knew this truth in my head because the Bible says it is so (see Matthew 22:37-40). But it took seeing my sisters’ lives and examples, as well as going through horrendous loss, to have it branded on my spirit.

I share my story today to encourage you, if you are sensing that you need to do something in love for someone else right now, perhaps something small, simple, even if it’s slightly strange, perhaps it’s time to go do it.

Leave your imprint on their DNA. Swing a bell and set off a chime of bells.

1 Corinthians 13:8a, “Love will last forever” (NLT).

Face Photograph Micah Strutzenberger 2022