What Not to Wear to Church….Again
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Up front, personally, this isn’t the topic I would choose to write about. No, not at all.
But apparently after the last post, What Not to Wear to Church,went crazy and beat the viewer record for the blog, well, God is up to something bigger than me.
Now I was willing to leave it at that. You know…
Thank you, Lord. Whew. Glad that’s over.
But then my enemy I mean, dear friend, mentioned as a side note in our discussion:
Perhaps a future post.
She had to go and say that, didn’t she? Because the Lord was already whispering in my heart… Girl, this is one topic that people need to discuss. And it’s not completely shallow, as you tend to think.
Like another lap on Mario Kart for Wii:
Here we go again.
From fifth grade through high school, I attended a tiny Christian school and we wore uniforms. Not just any uniforms: red, white and blue uniforms. Now I love American colors; I really do! But after approximately fourteen hundred days of wearing red, white and blue every single day, the lack of wardrobe variety was a bit…constraining. Oh, the anticipation of a new day…the first day of college, when the color police would no longer be in force and I would freely participate in the full rainbow of fashion.
Then I received my welcome letter from the college…only to read:
We are looking forward to participating in a fantastic move-in day with you as a new college freshman. As part of the Patriotic Celebration, please wear red, white and blue to reflect your spirit and excitement.
Say what? Yes, I am totally serious. I believe that God was teaching me a lesson. One that took many years to sink in, but that said:
Clothing is not nearly as important as you believe.
I’m still learning this lesson, perhaps you are too. When I wrote about how our family likes to prepare our clothing for church the night before and we try to wear our best, the point I didn’t reiterate is that most of our clothes come from Nordstrom’s (Are they still in business?)…actually the answer is: Goodwill. The alternate favorite? Hand-me-downs.
You really don’t have to have huge amounts of money to dress decently. Now our family certainly isn’t the most fashionable. But our colors match and we try to have somewhat of a current style. I think.
To further the wardrobe discussion, hand-me-downs are critical to large families. We have a large amount of storage space in our basement dedicated to clothing. When one child grows out of their size, that size and season of clothing is placed in a bin and marked accordingly so that the next child can use it. This system has served us well. The only problem is that now we are on the last child and I have an overage in the system. It’s time to change, edit, delete, and transition at least a part of the way I am managing our family’s wardrobe process. Over thinking about this in the past few weeks, I narrowed it down to a few points.
1. Holding on to everything is no longer necessary.
2. Rearranging will add value because it will bring necessary items to the forefront.
3. Continuing to preserve what we will use in the future brightens the future.
Have you ever thought that perhaps we are wearing a whole wardrobe to church when all we really need is appropriate clothing for the current temps?
What I really mean is
1. God’s grace is bigger than our past; holding on to everything is no longer necessary.
2.The time has come to sort through those memory bins of our personal spiritual backgrounds and only bring to the forefront what truly should be the focus.
3. Paul says it this way: “Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.”
When I try to foresee the future of my children and picture their spiritual heritage, the last thing I’m concerned about is what clothes they will wear to church. I want to “preserve what they will use in the future.”
You are my hiding place; You shall preserve me from trouble; You shall surround me with songs of deliverance. Psalm 32:7
The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever. Isaiah 40:8
We all have our opinions about issues in church. What we want the building to look like, how the lighting should appear, whether or not the music is too loud, what we should wear…and the list goes on and on. But I’m proposing today one item we should set aside.
What not to wear to church?
The sleeves of difference rolled up in preparation to do battle against each other.