Moments of Insecurity

No matter how beautiful or confident you are, you will have those days when you wake up and feel the very opposite of beautiful and confident. I was extremely blessed to be raised in an environment where compliments were abundant and true confidence was taught. However, I am not immune to the insecurity bug. Today was one of those mornings. It was one of those login to Facebook, see a picture I was tagged in, and wonder "does my face really look like that" kind of mornings. So what do you do when insecurity slaps you in the face on an early Monday morning? For most of us, all we want to do is give up, put on sweats, avoid the mirror(or any people for that matter), and get back into bed to wait until we feel pretty again. Is this helpful? Probably not. Was this even possible for me today? No. I mean the new Taylor Swift cd is waiting for me at Target!!!! Come on people! So what can a girl do? 

My arsenal is twofold when I come face to face with this kind of enemy. 

1. This morning I read in Galations that we are clothed in Christ. Now, I realize that this verse has absolutely nothing to do with actual clothing, which is why  I love it. Insecurity is deeper than our looks. It is good to remember that our spiritual wardrobe comes straight from Christ. I had to remind myself that God created me with all my quirks and "imperfections" and He said "it is good". Beauty is so much more about how you carry yourself. I walk a little taller knowing that God placed me where I am right smack dab in the middle of a bunch of people who love me. Insecurity is pulled out by the roots when you get to the heart of the matter. KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!!! 

2. I once found some shockingly profound advice in a book by Bobbi Brown on teen beauty. Essentially she was giving advice to teens on what to do when they wake up with that huge zit right between their eyes.  She recommended not obsessing over the zit. Poking and prodding would only make it worse and prolong it. Just as staring at your face in the magnifying mirror and dissecting every little flaw will only cause your insecurity to be inflamed. Instead, she said to put on your prettiest eye shadow, double up on mascara, and force people to be so entranced by your eyes that the zit pales in comparison. I don't think that makeup is the answer. I even resisted the urge to put on makeup this morning. I do, however, think that accentuating the positive can cause the negative shrink into the background. Putting on that new shirt, doing that super cute braid you just learned on Pinterest, or wearing your special occasion perfume on this utterly normal day can only help to remind you of the confidence you have access to. So by all means take off those sweats, remind yourself who you were created to be, & DRESS ACCORDINGLY!! 

The Dress

You all have those one or two items in your closet that hold a certain memory or feeling for you. I, especially, associate my clothes with events or how I was feeling when that item was the newbie in my closet. Some people do this with music or smells. For me, however, it is clothes. There is a particular dress that makes me just giddy when I look at it. 

I was 15 and it was 2008. Seth Morrison had just asked me to homecoming, which was in two weeks. I was completely out of my mind excited because I never thought I was going to get to do all those "high school" things that my unique approach to school didn't include. On the other hand, didn't he know a girl like me needed way longer than two weeks to pick out the perfect dress?????? Thankfully, my mom knew before me and had scouted out a dress that she said, "just looked like it belonged to me". So off we went to Anthropologie, a store she had previously avoided me discovering. Immediately I knew I had found my own personal style haven. There were no mini skirts or tacky polyester shirts in sight. Things were classic, lovely, and modest! The Anthropologie girl was something I could relate too. She didn't have to wear low cut shirts or too tight pants to be pretty and attractive. Thus began a romance still thriving to this day. Needless to say the dress was perfect. It was classy and covered everything it was supposed to. It had polka dots and a bow to keep it fun. Most importantly, when I put it on all I wanted to do was twirl. That's when you know it's right.

Fast forward to the night of homecoming. I felt like a princess in my perfect, polka dot dress. He gasped when he saw me so that had to mean something right? As his parents drove us up to the school I caught glimpses of the other girls all dolled up. Then it hit me. This was a HIGH SCHOOL HOMECOMING! Classy and refined was not exactly their goal. Some of their "dresses" had to have been meant to be shirts. Everything was skin tight and definitely not from Anthropologie. I panicked. Do I look like a gramma? Should I have gotten a sequined, mini dress? Thankfully the freak out was momentary. I remembered that I was not a sequined, mini dress girl. He hadn't asked me because he was expecting me to be one either. I had confidence because I knew who I was and I had dressed myself accordingly. So I gathered up my courage, put a smile on my face, and walked into the dance arm in arm with someone who actually liked me better for being an Anthropologie girl. I twirled all night and for the second time that week, thus began a romance still thriving to this day. 

1 Timothy 2:9

Likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control...

Dress Accordingly

There are a small handful of things that I get very passionate about when they come up in conversation. Two of them happen to be: faith and fashion. One might think that these two really have nothing to do with each other. I do agree that our feelings about fashion do not affect our salvation or our view of God. However, our view of God(and ourselves) do shape our feelings toward everything, including fashion. Yay fashion! 

I believe that God is an artistic God and we are made in his image. For some, they express this characteristic through your typical artsy endeavors e.g. music, painting, photography. All of these expressions are beautiful and talents I often envy. However, I was born with the God-given desire to express creativity through clothing. I say this is God-given because I was definitely not taught to have this particular passion. Just ask my mommy. I came out with a very clear view of what I wanted to wear and what was absolutely not going to be put onto my body (I don't care if you are 1,000 times bigger and stronger than me). So, thankfully my mom learned to appreciate my desire to wear plastic heels and tiaras and hopped on board to cultivate my passion into something that reflected the girl she was raising me to be. There are many muses and fashion rules (most are from my mother or Coco Chanel) that my wardrobe has been shaped by. In this blogging adventure I will share these with you along with shopping adventures and all things outfits. If I were to pick one rule that forms my fashion foundation it would be the following: 

Epictetus was a Greek philosopher. See fashion can be deep too!! You might be wondering, "How again do clothes have anything to do with faith other than being 'artsy'?" Well, this quote says it all. As Christian ladies we must know first, who we are in Christ. Who did He create us to be? Where has He placed us? What has He called us to do? Figuring out the answers to these questions must come first, and then we simply.... dress accordingly.