I'm Wearing Jeans to Church

Whenever we go somewhere, I am never ready. I spend so much time trying to find our son's shoes and my daughter's precious stuffed pig that I have little time to figure out what I am going to wear, much less throw on a little make-up. Eddie Bauer mom in high-topped boots I am not. In fact, Eddie Bauer is not less than 100 miles from us. As we were preparing to leave for church yesterday, I realized that we had nearly 10 minutes left for me to get ready. I yell to my husband, "I'm wearing jeans to church today! I hate all my clothes!" He looks at me with that humorous smirk that I both love and find annoying. Besides, he has clothing issues as well. I finally find a pair of "not too wrinkled," and "not too visible hanger crease," black pants, and the one blue top that is not more than a year old. As flighty as I am about fashion, new means it's my favorite.
As a mom, I find that fashion is becoming more incredibly challenging and even more so, it becomes less interesting as I rise to the occasion of motherhood. Fashion, and impressing other people, is no longer my biggest priority. I remember when I was in high school and junior high, fashion was everything. Even back then, I wasn't incredibly successful at the whole thing. I still felt inadequate even though I worked so hard on myself every morning. My hair had to be just right, as well as my make-up. I spent forever on my "eighties wall-o-bangs." I did all of this in my early twenties as well, although thankfully of course, the "wall-o-bangs" had since expired. All of the fuss didn't make me look better. It didn't make me a better person.

When we finally got to church, for which we are perpetually late, my three-year-old daughter behaved quite well to begin with. Our speaker this past Sunday was very inspiring. His whole message was about "Holding the Light." He explained how when helping his father work on the farm, his job was to "hold the light," so his father could do his work. He paralled it to the work that humans do for God. It was a very interesting, meaningful sermon. I wish I could have heard the end of it. My three-year-old was very tired, and when she's tired, and things are not exactly how she wants them, she has a meltdown. I had committed the mortal sin of taking her animals out of her brother's new bug box. And as we all know meltdowns can be hideous, and this one was. She was promptly marched out of the sanctuary and we ended up sitting on the stairs (when we act up in church, we don't get to go the playroom). She sat for awhile on the stairs and began to calm down. We wrote on her magna-doodle. She drew an egg, a very large egg. Then she wanted me to draw an Easter Bunny.

My previous, fashion conscious self would have been mortified at all of this. She would not have lived through going to church with half-brushed hair and a child having a screaming fit. That woman would have been paralyzed with fear. My children have taught me to "hold the light" for them, to be brave, to be self-assured. They don't care how my hair looks. They care about the path I walk on and how I'm forging it for them. They have taught me to be a better, more forgiving person. Eddie Bauer, you will have to wait.