Jan 06 2009
WARNING! Fashion Lemming alert
guest post by Erin Straza from Filling My Patch of Sky
Recently, my grandmother purchased her first nonwhite bra. Ever. It was the wild color of . . . beige.
As my grandmother shared her mutinous experience, I thought of how different the world was when she was young. Those differences shaped her understanding of appropriate dress and behavior, providing rules and guidelines for femininity—just as today’s society has shaped ours.
But society’s vision for fashion and femininity is ever shifting. Sadly, women tend to race right after it.
We’ve seen major changes in the acceptance of everything from exposed skin and women’s roles in society to pant styles and crass attitudes and actions. Some rules ride the winds of consumerism—for example, fashion gurus urge us to once again embrace fringe and the patio dress. Some rules have withstood the winds yet remain questionable, such as if white shoes can be worn after Labor Day.
In eras past, norms led women to shun colorful undergarments; today, women shun modesty. And in other cultures, norms have led women to bind their feet or stretch their necks, all in the name of womanhood.
Some of these changes are rather harmless; but much of it is costly. And most tragic of all is that the world has the final say in defining feminine expression.
As Christian women, we face the dilemma of living out authentic femininity in a constantly changing world.
If only the solution was as clear as my grandmother’s white-only underwear rule! But God doesn’t make such determinations for us. God wants to teach us—not merely tell us—how to properly express our femininity.
We need God, the Author of femininity, to teach us what He meant it to be.
Although women express themselves through dress and demeanor, true femininity is woven into each woman’s heart and soul and being. It’s there in the secret place that our true womanhood is found.
The world’s pollutants have infiltrated us to the core though. We’ve willingly ingested its rules. But the apostle Paul said this to the Roman believers: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
In countless ways, we have blindly and mindlessly conformed to the world.
With fashion and femininity, the times dictate what’s acceptable, and we too often play the lemming.
Thankfully, God rescues us from this madness that leads us over the cliff’s edge. By rejecting the world’s ideals and yielding to God’s transforming work, we can know God’s will for us: what is good and acceptable and perfect—even in femininity and fashion, even in today’s society, and regardless of what’s considered vogue.
We have new rules and new freedom.
My sister and I were inspired by my grandmother’s recent detachment from the world’s white undergarment standard. So we surprised her with a bright pink, rhinestone-accented bra. It’s a vivid reminder not to live by the world’s rules—for in radical relationship with God, we can live a truly free, authentic femininity designed by the Author Himself.
As you exchange conformity to the world for conformity to Christ, you may be led to wear a more modest neckline or white shoes after Labor Day . . . or a rhinestone-accented pink bra. That’s the beauty of walking with God—you never know where He’ll lead you next.
So don’t be a fashion lemming; be a lemming for the Lord.
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Erin Straza is passionate about the wholeness and rest found in Christ alone. Drawing from her own brokenness and restoration, Erin offers women encouragement and insight from a fellow sojourner’s perspective on the mystery of God’s redemptive work. Erin and her husband, Mike, live in central Illinois, where she works as a freelance writer, copy editor, and speaker. To read more of her musings, visit her blog at erinstraza.wordpress.com
