What NOT to wear!

How do you get dressed in the morning?  If it is anything like me you put on 10 different outfits, stand in front of the mirror and assess why it will or will not work.  Then you spend the rest of your day pulling and tugging at your clothing to make sure your “muffin top” doesn’t hang over your pants, or your shirt doesn’t hike up to kingdom come.  What is the purpose for clothing?  It is more than just expressing your creative fashion.  We wear clothes to accentuate things we like about ourselves, while covering up the things that we don’t like.  Clothing covers our nakedness and vulnerability.  Well, the right clothes anyway.

 

Have you ever seen “What not to wear”?  I used to watch it ALL the time because I had no style and I was trying to figure out how to dress my body type.  It’s actually quite fascinating to see how a different outfit can make a woman look (and feel) like a completely different person.  For instance… an ill-fitting coat, with baggy pants and an awful pair of sneakers are bound to make any lady (young or old) feel unattractive.  You may think to yourself, who would dress like that?!  And my answer would be, you do.  Maybe not physically, but spiritually and emotionally we all do.  We all grab for that coat of insecurity, those pants of loneliness and those shoes of gossip.  We may have it all together on the outside, but on the inside we are on the worst dressed list of the century.

 

I was reading the other day in Proverbs 31 about the "virtuous woman".  It says in verse 25 that "strength and dignity are her clothing and her position is strong and secure".  Strength and dignity.  I wish with all of my heart that more often than not I would leave the unkind words, insecure thoughts, anxiety, fear, and depression inside of the closet and grab for the strength and dignity instead.  But what is strength?  What does it look like?  Is it being a bully or someone to be feared?  Or is true strength knowing who you are despite circumstances or situations.  Having the strength to stand in faith when everything is going unimaginably wrong.  Having the strength to stand by your convictions no matter what friends may think or say.  Having the strength to say no when things are heating up with a boyfriend.  Having the strength to call yourself out when you make a mistake.  Physical ability can be taken away but strength of character cannot be taken from you.  So be strong ladies, be strong. It is so uncommon to find women who keep their shoulders back, their heads up, and a smile on their face through good times and bad. But that is the very essence of strength and dignity, an assurance that God has everything under control no matter what is going on in your life.  Through highs and lows, success and failure- you were created to clothe yourselves with strength and dignity!

 

Every time you wake up in the morning and decide not to deal with the issues in your life that are not in line with the character of God, I hope you remember that it is the same as wearing an overstuffed coat that is covering your true beauty- the lady that you were created to be, the beauty that was meant to shine in this dark world.  And every day you go on wearing it, you are fooling yourself further into believing that you cannot change- this is you.  What a lie straight from the bottom of an empty pie plate.  The grudge holding, foul speaking, insecure and lonely shell of a being is not you- unless you choose for it to be you.   So rise above whatever situation or feeling you are going through, and choose to clothe yourself with strength and dignity instead.  You are better than this.  I am better than this.  I may have come a long way, but I still have a lot more ugly clothes to throw in the trash!  I hope you will join me in reclaiming today what was designed just for you to wear- STRENGTH AND DIGNITY!

 

 

Proverbs 31: 25-27

"²⁵ Strength and dignity are her clothing and her position is
strong and secure; she rejoices over the future [the latter day
or time to come, knowing that she and her family
are in readiness for it]! ²⁶ She opens her mouth in skillful

and godly Wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness
[giving counsel and instruction]. ²⁷ She looks well to
ow things go in her household, and the bread of idleness
(gossip, discontent, and self-pity) she will not eat."