Little Black Dress

Our weekend away is approaching quickly and I was in need of a black dress. Okay... I was in need of  something to wear for a romantic dinner and fell in love with a black dress. Actually I fell in love with a stack of black dresses till I took them to the dressing room. You would think someone would invent more flattering lighting for dressing rooms... But one fit fabulously and (as if I wasn't going to buy it anyway) it was on super-duper clearance for $3.39!

So what is a girl to do but text Lauren and tell her the dress code for dinner had just been upgraded to sexy little black dress. She reminded me that she HATES dresses and I reminded her that I dressed like a cat for her birthday so... she bought a black dress. You can thank me later Steve.

And all was well until I saw her dress. Enter insecurity. Suddenly I am convinced that I am going to look like Grimace. Remember him?

I think I am pretty comfortable in my own skin. I don't spend a lot of time comparing myself to other women. After being pregnant or nursing for almost 8 years, I am starting to feel like myself again. I have come to accept that almost 29 is not going to look like 19 when we started the process. It goes unsaid that I would gladly have given up a limb to have each of them. And besides all that I think J is enjoying the benefits that come from me nearing thirty. Or maybe it is the fact that I can shower regularly and we don't have to climb over three kids in our bed to find each other.

All that to say that I have no idea where this sudden insecurity came from. Sure, I do want to look good in the dress. I want my husband to be proud of me. But its more then that. This passage spoke to me this morning.

"Ruth may have been a lovely, strong woman, but it is her unrelenting courage and vulnerability and faith in God that Boaz is drawn to. Esther is the most beautiful woman in the land, but it is her bravery and her cunning, good heart that moves the king to spare her people. This isn't about dresses and makeup...We desire to possess a beauty that is worth pursuing, worth fighting for, a beauty that can be felt, a beauty that is true to the core of who we truly are. We want beauty that can be seen; beauty that affects others; a beauty all our own to unveil."                                                                                 Captivating p.17

And it's a struggle for me. Having been a teenager and then a young wife who found a lot her identity in the attention drawn by her appearance, my feelings on physical beauty swing like a pendulum. A long season of being perpetually pregnant and then just fat, made me work at expressing me. My desire became that people would look at me and see my intelligence, creativity, passion, my devotion to my children, and my heart for His kingdom. It was a season of "can you see me"? And while it is good to resemble myself again, I don't ever want to be lost in that.

I love the little black dress. But more then the little black dress, I love that the people who will be with me when I wear it can see me. And that they would love me even if the Grimace thing were true...