“Kitten Heel Ministry” – A United Church of Christ StillSpeaking Daily Devotional by The Rev. Kaji Douŝa

O give thanks to the Lord, for the Lord is good; God’s steadfast love endures forever! – Psalm 118:1 (NRSV, adapted)

I would love to tell you about a ministry that changed how I think about my faith: Darell Hunt (@noontnoont)’s Kitten Heel Ministry. I’ll confess that when I first came across this, I personally owned a couple of pairs of my own. There’s no shame here. Just help.

In his words:

From a place of physics? They’re just not a good start to one’s day. The slightest disruption can RUIN an ankle. And? a Kitten Heel will stress out the rest of the foot.

And he’s right! We rely on our feet, and our footwear, to take us places. But in order to get there, we need a strong base and proper support. We need to make choices that don’t cause stress that we know we could avoid.

Darell’s central question is: Why wouldn’t you give yourself a surer foundation?

I love this illustration for many reasons, and I just want to say: you don’t have to wear heels to get it. But you can imagine how destabilizing it could be to teeter on thin slabs of material.

And my contention is: a lot of us do quite a bit of spiritual teetering. Because we give ourselves waaaaay too unstable a spiritual base to stand on.

A lot of us are walking around with some Kitten Heel Faith. Wobbling on a base that just isn’t supportive enough.

When we try to make God into a kitten heel: too small. Too narrow. Too limited. Too much a figment of our own imaginations. Instead of God, the maker of the universe and all that dwelleth within… we place our hopes on limited things.

That’s not enough for our God, who wants your hope to have more strength and girth to it. No kitten heels faith, beloved! Our God is so much more.

Prayer

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; All other ground is sinking sand, All other ground is sinking sand*… And: kitten heels. Selah.

*Edward Mote, “My Hope is Built on Nothing Less” (public domain)

The “StillSpeaking Daily Devotional” series is produced by The United Church of Christ.