Do you dread changing your wardrobe from season to season? For those of us blessed to have clothing options from which to choose but spaces too small in which to hang them all at once, the changing of the seasonal wardrobes becomes a semiannual event.
Yesterday, I shared some favorite and easy to wear trends for 2013 Spring and Summer. Today, I want to pass along to you the KEY to making this transition actually FUN. If you’ve been a reader of SmellingCoffee for long, then you know exactly what I will be sharing. But for those of you who are newer to the aroma here, I want you to know the most important fashion tip I could ever pass along to anyone: prayer. Yep. I’m serious. Prayer.
In the world today, there is SO much going on… so many needs… so many hurts… so many important things that must be brought before the Throne of the King of Kings, that some might consider “praying about what to wear and how to stay fashion forward” would be a bother to our Holy God. But I beg to differ on that. God is completely big enough to handle every bit of the crises of the world and what we would consider the trifle things of our lives.
I truly believe that Scripture teaches us that whatever is on our minds, we need to invite God to be a part of it, and let Him help guide us as we mentally process whatever it is. For me, there are many things on my mind that I’m entrusting to the Father. And what to wear this time of year, especially since I’ve wandered into the perspiratory “waters” of hot-flashes, is just one of a long list. For this coming week, I’ve got spring-type clothing closet cleaning on a portion of my brain. If you do too, I offer to you the way the Lord helps me dress and stay “current” for each season of weather, and of life.
1. I look through fashion magazines in waiting rooms, the library, or wherever I find them, and try to get a feel for the common denominators in the clothing and accessories trends. I’ll often invest in one fashion magazine in either March or April. I try to find the most “modest” one if I’m going to bring it into our home.
2. I check the internet fashion websites to see what was on the runway for the season.
3. Realizing that what is in the magazines and on the runways is not what will look “normal” in my middle-class-suburban-stay-at-home-wife-mom-Bible-teacher-life, I classify the trends in categories of clothing I would actually wear.
And these days, everything must fit into all three of these “C categories”: Cool – as in the combatant for hot-flashes, Cute – because no matter how old I am, I still want to be cute for God’s glory, and Comfortable – as in life is too short to spend it in clothes that are too tight! A men???
While I’m doing this, I’m doing it with the Lord, often talking through these things out-loud to Him, as if He’s sitting with me (which actually… He is right there with me).
4. Then WE (He and I) go through my clothes for the new season. He totally does this with me. We pull out the clothes and I try them on. This ritual is most often accompanied by a renewed commitment to exercise and tone up the sagging muscles.
5. Remembering the trend categories, I’ll pray for wisdom to make “new” outfits out of old clothes. I don’t audibly hear this, but the Lord will put ideas in my mind, and I’ll try them on, with shoes and accessories.
6. Usually, I’ll “need” {disclaimer: “need” in the lightest sense of the word – in the true scope of things, I know that I have more than I’ll ever “need”}a few pieces to update my wardrobe from the previous year. I’ll write down what I “need” in my prayer journal on a page called “Requests and Wish Lists”. Then I let it go. I give it to the Lord, and ask Him to provide those pieces of clothing / shoes / accessories IF He will be glorified through them. Sometimes I feel led to write a price beside the item. It’s so much fun to see the Lord provide in such specific ways. Sometimes He’ll provide what I’ve asked for, and sometimes He doesn’t. When He doesn’t provide, I find that I really didn’t “need” it anyway.
7. I don’t go out and spend lots of money on clothing. I give the needs to the Lord, and then I wait to see how He leads me to find the items I need. Often, I can pick something up at Target or Wal Mart, or Ross’ or Khols on sale or clearance. One piece at a time, the Lord builds my “current” wardrobe. Sometimes I’ll be drawn to go to Goodwill and look around. When I obey and go when the Lord leads me, I find just what was on the list. Occasionally someone will share their “hand me overs” with me, and something I’ve prayed for will be among those clothes. Our God is creative with His provisions!
8. Everyday (or night), I stand at my closet and ask the Lord to help me know what to wear. He guides my eyes and hands and helps me choose the outfit de jour.
I may not look “perfect” to everyone else, but when the Lord has helped me dress and fix my hair, the responsibility for how I look is up to Him, and I don’t have to worry over it anymore. I can leave my house knowing that He has dressed me spiritually (in my quiet time with Him), and physically.
After I get ready with His help, having done the best I can with what I’ve been given, I say Psalm 90:17 to the Lord: “Let Your beauty be upon me, and establish the work of my hands.” I’m then free to go about my day, confident of His handiwork in and upon my life.
Matthew 6:24-34 sums up what I’ve taken way too many paragraphs to say. No matter how big or little it seems, God can take care of it. Our job is to seek Him first, and all these other things will fall into place. Seeking Him first – even for our spring wardrobes – takes all of the worry out of it. We can trust Him to dress us in the way where He receives the glory – and we’ll be current and beautiful like the lilies.
(24) “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. (25) Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? (26) Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? (27) Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?(28) And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. (29) Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. (30) If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
(31) So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ (32) For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. (33) But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (34) Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
If you’ve never thought that God cared about these things before, or you never wanted to “bother” Him with the little stuff, I challenge you to try it. You’re not bothering Him. Ask Him to help you in the little things, and you’ll see Him being involved in your life in a big way! Doing all things with and through the power of Jesus Christ – even changing our our wardrobes – makes even the most mundane tasks “FUN”!
