The Diaries of a Fruitcake in a Half Baked World!

Can you surrender all? Even your thoughts?
Do you know what it is like being in a relationship where there is adultery? I became very observant to the looks that I would see in mine. Every woman knows what I am talking about. There doesn’t have to be any infidelities admitted, you just have that gut feeling.
Many men and women believe that committing adultery is the actual act of being intimate, becoming one. That is a partially true. If that is the only way to commit adultery then it’s a lie to keep you living in a false sense of right, when really it’s wrong.

Adultery begins with a thought.

You might think you are strong and can keep your eyes to yourself but what happens when the woman wears the blouse a little to low and you can see her cleavage? Or maybe the skirt is a little above the knee? Your thoughts are what happens next. I like to say there is a second look rule.  You look once without thought. If someone is attractive, you look.  When you do a double take or you turn to look back or you position yourself where you aren’t obvious that you are looking, your thoughts have possibly turned into sin.

Matthew 5: 27,28 Jesus said, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”

Lust in the dictionary means, self-indulgent sexual desire; a strong sexual desire; have a craving, appetite, or great desire for.

Women who dress this way might say they do because they are confident about their appearance but the truth of the matter is this…

They want the attention. They need it.
They are missing something very important in their life. A piece that belongs to Jesus. By dressing this way women hinder not only the man but the other women around.  Women? For the woman it’s not always jealousy or low self esteem. Ladies, it is fear.

My Momma told me a while ago what fear means.

FEAR =

F- False

E- Events

A- Appearing

R- Real

You might cause their spouse or boyfriend to have a wandering eye for you. This leads to ungodly thoughts. It’s not a woman’s insecurities, it’s their home unit that is being invaded. They might have a man that they like and in walks the woman looking all seductive and the man naturally will look at her. The woman who isn’t dressed provocatively but modest begins to fade in the background.

I was this woman at one time. I began to ask myself why I wore so much eye make-up and why I chose those tight jeans. When I was truthful with myself, I started paying attention to everything I did. I wore the eye make up to attract my husband, at the time, to my eyes. I would always get compliments on my eyes. I wanted the compliments from him but if he didn’t notice, someone did. He liked me wearing make up. I wore the tight jeans so that it would show off my curves. I was wanting attention, to feel attractive and my ex liked me in jeans, not skirts. I carried myself with my shoulders back, head raised and chest forward. I was confident in my walk but I was messed up in my heart. It wasn’t until I found Jesus and became convicted on it that I stopped doing these things for attention. It was really hard to let go of it, especially when you no longer have someone to compliment you and you have been used to getting those compliments. I realized that by wearing the clothes and make up like I did, I was causing others to stumble. I didn’t want to be a stumbling block. Yes, I wanted to be attractive to my husband but not at the expense of other men looking and their wives or girlfriends sending me daggers with their looks.

So ladies, let’s be honest, you might want to ask yourself these questions that I asked myself:
1) When you put on your clothes, why do you choose provocative instead of modest apparel? Do you put on the jeans and turn around and think your bottom looks good and you will get looks on it? Or maybe the tightness on your legs will show how skinny you are? Maybe the shirt is low and reveal your cleavage, showing what you have? Will all eyes be on you?
2) Why do you make yourself pretty with artificial cosmetics? Do you put on the eyeliner thick to bring the color of your eyes out? Do you want them to look there instead of the bad areas you think you have? Maybe your eyes are the only thing you think is attractive? That isn’t true.  Natural beauty is attractive and believe me, when a man sees the inside being beautiful, you will become the most attractive woman ever.

Haha, men reading this might think, what? A man doesn’t look at the inside and the beauty comes to the outside. Men, I am telling you, when you see a woman who isn’t showing off her assets, sure you probably won’t give her a second look but if that woman became a friend or asked you for coffee and sat across from you, you would be seeing the real woman, not the appearance of the woman. Her heart will show on her face and she would start to spark something in you. She might be smart, she might be funny, she might be all of those things and when you see who she is, inside, you will be attractive for the right reasons, not the false reasons.

One thing you have to understand is that not all women who dress modest do so because they don’t care about being what the world considers attractive. They do care about their appearance. They want to be clean and attractive but naturally and modestly. They do so because they are led to be natural. They don’t want to be a stumbling block to other men or women.  They are covering a multitude of sin that could be happening because of the way they appear to the world.  They are not being conformed to this world but standing out with the standard of purity and modesty. God has a standard and it is written for a reason in the Bible.

Isaiah 47:2-3 reveals what God calls “nakedness” or immodesty. It is to “make bare the leg” and “uncover the thigh”.  1 Timothy 2:9 calls us, men and women, to dress in modest apparel.When you have such a love for God and such an abhorrence for worldliness that you will allow God to set your standards as to whether a dress is modest or not…you can’t go wrong!

Yes, man will sin with their thoughts even over women who dress modestly but the difference is you. If you are being worldly, not living for what God says, then you will be just as much at fault. You will be adding fuel to the fire. I know this might seem harsh but this is the truth. You are making it harder for others and yourself to live a Holy life because you are getting the wrong approval. You are getting approval from man and not your God.  If you are living for God and dress modestly and man or woman stumble in their sin, it is their sin, not yours.

So women, let’s cover a multitude of sin and dress modestly not provocatively.  Pay attention to your motives when you put on your make up, your clothes.  When you do, you will have to come to terms on why you are doing it in the first place, like I did. If you can honestly say that you wear everything because you like it, go a step further and ask why you like it. If you love putting on make up and are good at it, you gotta go deeper and realize that maybe, just maybe by you wearing it to show off how good you are, you get the ladies complimenting you and making you feel good about yourself. It’s nice to have accolades but you would find it is more fulfilling having accolades when you are doing it for the right reasons. Really what is make up good for? Making you more attractive? Hey, I was there. When a man sees you in your natural and loves you, you are accepted for who you really are. You have let your mask down. You are showing the REAL you.

Some helpful hints. I was given some “covers” that snap onto my bra and I couldn’t believe how much I revealed with my shirts until I put one on. I don’t have to get rid of all my shirts and wear high collars, I just snap on the cover to my bra and I am more modest. Decide on the length of your skirt to not go over your knee. That means when you sit down, your knees aren’t showing.  Why? Well, everyone is convicted differently depending on where they are in their walk with Jesus and what their Pastor preaches. If a man can see your knee or above your knee, his thoughts will wander to what you look like without that skirt. Yes, that is his problem but he wouldn’t have that problem if he couldn’t see your knee. So help a brother out. Don’t show your knee.

I know this generation is all about ME, ME, ME. But can we stop and think of others and how we can help them? Our sacrifice to our selfishness will be rewarded.

Going to a restroom, you will always see the sign where it shows the woman in a dress and the man in pants. Now, I have seen unisex signs where half the figure is pant and skirt.

I am on a journey of why our dress changed.  Why we feel we have to wear pants or we think to wear a skirt or dress makes us less worthy. I was raised in little dresses and pants. But there was time when pants were not even an option for women.

I was speaking with my Granni this morning and I asked her if she remembered when she started wearing pants.  She thought for second and said she did. She was the first woman to wear a pair of pants to her church.  When she walked in, the women came up to her and told her how happy they were that she wore them. They could now start wearing pants, since she started it.  She laughed and said that she was always the first to be trying things.

I asked her if she remembered why she started wearing pants and she couldn’t remember the reasoning for it. My Great-Granni, her Mother, never wore pants that she could remember.

It truly is amazing when I decided to live for Christ how my manners, my sight, my feelings for living have changed. I care for people but it has tripled in how I feel love for everyone.

Here comes the fruitcake, and I say this with humor not demeaning in anyway. I have been dealing with the conviction of dress and it started over 8 years ago but then I stopped reading the word and spending daily time with my God, I even stopped going to church. People were looking at me like I was a freak and I was having a hard time with that and my husband, at the time, coming back from the war and seeing a change in me. I was coming across as odd or different or religious. Looking back I realize that I was living for people and not God.

EVERYONE has different convictions.  I am not putting this here to say that you need to have this conviction or be like me. I am sharing my testimony of the conviction of dress for me.

I was in a bad place in my walk with Christ for a long period of time. I had the problem with offense. I was hurt by Christians and I held onto the offense without realizing.  I let my pride get in the way by saying, “This is what happened but I am good now”. I wasn’t good. I put up a wall and was afraid to open up to anyone for fear I would be hurt again.  Maybe you can relate to what I am saying. I wouldn’t plant my feet in any church, let alone go to one without feeling sad or asking myself, “what do they want of me?”. My walls were very high.

It wasn’t until recently, through my studying, it came to me that I need to learn from what Jesus did.  Imagine going through what He went through. When His hour came and everyone that said they wouldn’t deny Him, did. I tell you what, I would have been offended and thought, “well see if I call you again or speak to you.” My feelings would have been hurt that my so called friends that professed to love me, acted like they didn’t even know me.  Jesus didn’t feel that way or have any offense toward them. He loved them, truly loved them, and came to them.  That is what I need to do in my life.  I don’t need to be afraid of getting hurt. When I do, I know that I will grow from it and be stronger.

Why allow offenses to come in between me and my Lord? Why stay in the dark hole of self-pity? I decided that it is time to allow myself to be open to relationships around me and not be afraid of being hurt. This life isn’t suppose to be peachy and perfect, if it was then we would be in Heaven. This life is by no means heaven! I decided it is time to plant my feet and no longer forsake the gathering of those who love Jesus. Where I plant is where the Lord is leading me. When it gets hard, I won’t leave and try to find another place. That is being offended and acting on it. I will not leave unless the Lord moves me in peace.

So with that being said, I have read the scripture Deut. 22:5, which says, “A woman must not wear man’s clothing, nor should a man dress up in woman’s clothing, for all who do this are an offense to the Lord your God.” We all know how we feel when we are offended. The word offense here is a hebrew term that speaks of anything that runs counter to ritual or moral order, especially to divine standards. It goes against God’s nature and will.

When I read that, I went through the thoughts of, “that was then, this is now.” BUT God is never changing. We change all the time, constantly. His word never changes with the times. He has no time. One day to us could be a thousand years to Him and a thousand years to us, could be a day to Him. It is a book that teaches us how to live from the One and Only True God.  Kind of like when we have children and we have lived and know that the path they are on would be smoother if they went this way. But no, they won’t listen to us to get a smoother path. They have to choose for themselves and travel the bumpy way. That is how the Bible is to me. It is my choice whether I want to be obedient to my God or live the way I want to live.

Some might think that this scripture is being taken out of context but my question to those people that think that is this: If taking it out of context is saying that women should not wear men’s clothing and it causes me to want to live in more modest apparel, to not be masculine but feminine, to live according to what I feel the Lord is telling me to be obedient about, what difference is it to you? How is me wearing a skirt hurting you? It’s not. I think it makes people take a look at their own life and how they are living and it might make them upset with what they see there. Therefore, they get upset and talk about the women in skirts.

My Granni brought up this scripture when she told me she started wearing pants and said that she wasn’t wearing men’s pants but women’s pants.  I told her, whether the pants button on the right or left or wherever the zipper is placed to make it a pair of “women’s” pants isn’t what that scripture was saying to me. Men wouldn’t wear a skirt to work in America. They wear pants. So, if I wear pants then I am wearing clothing like men. I don’t know if you see that but I do. If you don’t see that, don’t worry, it’s not something you are convicted on. I know I felt that way when someone pointed it out to me. I had to let God convict me if I was to not wear pants. I am still wearing them on and off but that is between me and my God. I am beginning to think I will only wear my skirts outside the home. Inside my PJ’s are pants, my exercise outfit inside is pants. Women wore pantaloons under their skirts to have modest movement if they had to lift their skirt to do something active.

I am not perfect and I know that people will always judge me and I am fine with that now. The only judge that matters is God. They will judge me if I am wearing pants by thinking things like, “Look at her butt”, or “why is her pants so tight?”. They will judge me in skirts by saying, “Why is she wearing a skirt?” or “She looks like she is one of those church ladies that have long hair and don’t wear make-up.” Well, I am one of those ladies but I wear some powder and my hair is shorter but I am letting it grow (another conviction).  I do want my hair longer but I like having the color, just like the Godly Women have perms. Chemicals are chemicals. Whether it be a perm or a color. I know that I cannot change my gray because the temporary stuff just wears off and bam! there is the gray. We cannot permanently change the color of our hair because within a few weeks, the natural has grown out and it’s the TRUE color.  How I look on the outside is for man to judge, I guess. Whether I am affected by it or not is my choice.

Here is something that came to me since I started being obedient to the conviction the Lord gave me:

• I realized while in Wal-Mart that when I looked around, I was the minority. I thought how back when women were wearing skirts, how they must have felt looking at the woman in pants. Do the women in pants now look at the woman in the skirt and think the same thing? Or were the women in skirts envious of the woman that seemed to have freedom in pants and be independent and now looking at the women in skirts feels that those women are going back to a time when we were in bondage?

Do you have anything to share on this topic? If so, feel free to email me or sign up and put your thoughts in the comments.