More On These Shoes Later... (it's later)

These are the shoes I’m wearing today.

Cute, right?

When I bought them (several years ago) I walked out of the store hugging the box. They are probably my favorite pair of shoes (to the point where I gave them away – too big – and then hugged them when my friend C gave them back!) The thing I didn’t know when I bought them, is that one day I would wear them with a purpose… for a cause…

Today is Rock the Red Pump Day in honor of National Women & Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.

Here’s the truth of the matter for me. I don’t think I know anyone with HIV/AIDS. But I’m sure I know people whose lives have been affected… after all, approximately 1.1 million people in the US are living with it and every 9.5 minutes someone in the US will be infected.

The Center for Disease Control says that while HIV/AIDS affects more men than women, more than a quarter of those diagnosed are woman ages 13 and up and for death in women? AIDS is third in line after heart disease and cancer. I think that was the number that surprised me most.

Now you should know that I’m the farthest thing from an expert that I think you could get. But the numbers above hit me somehow when I was reading them. A common vague topic for me on this blog is my desire to adopt someday and when I think about AIDS, I think about possible kid(s) I might adopt. I always end up thinking of Africa where it is so very rampant and I see the faces from photos that have been on some blog or website or e-mail I’ve read.

The way things are going? Who’s to say that someday I won’t adopt* a child orphaned by AIDS right here in the US???

*note: I don’t know that I’ll adopt an AIDS orphan from anywhere, but I don’t know where God is calling me to adopt from. Therefore, it is an absolute possibility.