The Dressing Room

Shopping for clothes with young children is an experience.
I am not talking about shopping for clothes for them.
I am talking about shopping for clothes for us.
Needing to buy that dress for a special occasion and having to bring them with you.

You load the diaper bag with bottles or Sippy-cups.
You pack special snacks so they won’t complain too much about being hungry.
You bring favorite toys and books so that they will be occupied as you are trying things on.
You always have your keys as a last resort, though the jingling may annoy other shoppers.

You are fortified.
You are ready.
You can do this in the allotted time frame.
You have to.

Bringing multiple children is always an experience.
You go over the rules of behavior before you leave the car.
You have the Mommy stare down perfectly, so that ONE look says it all.
You venture out into the vast unknown.

Playing with the little size circles that are on the hangers is always great fun.
Seeing themselves in the mirror and making silly faces can entertain for hours.
Being old enough to be in the next dressing room and waving under the gap is the best.
Waving under the gap in the other direction to a total stranger is not received as well.

Children will leave marks on the long mirrors with their hands and their noses.
Children will find the tiniest straight pin on the floor and hand it to you, pin side down.
Older children will make younger children giggle hysterically.
Their laugh reverberates through the dressing room, music to a mother’s ears.

You are near tears.
You are ready to go home.
You never noticed how vein-y your legs are or how soft everything is around the middle.
It must be the florescent lights, you tell yourself.

The dressing room is not big enough for you and a stroller and a toddler.
The dressing room was not designed with children in mind.
The acoustics are such that everything echoes.
Things that other people say or do makes them laugh and you Shhh them loudly.

You are ready to give up.
You can’t go back and choose more options because you don’t want to pack up again.
Maybe you will wait and go when your husband gets home.
But then you remember how tired you are when your husband gets home.

It’s now or never, you say out loud.
Just when you decide that you will wear something you already have, you hear it.
Mommy’s be-au-ti-ful! stressing every syllable for emphasis.
The messy hair in the banana clip, the low-cut sport socks, the stretch marks don’t matter.

Mommy, you’re pretty! said with all the love one little child can muster.
You don’t ask them to clarify.
You don’t ask them to specifically tell you what it is about you that’s pretty.
You accept the compliment; you treasure it; you believe it.

You leave the store without buying anything.
You don’t need to.
Everything in your closet will do just fine.
You’re beautiful to a child.

They have seen you at your worst and they see beauty.
They have seen you when you are most vulnerable and it doesn’t matter.
They have seen the imperfections and think you are perfectly lovely.
They see the whole package and find true beauty.

Why don’t we love like little children?
Why don’t we see something beautiful and proclaim that beauty?
Why do we look at things in pieces to see how it measures up?
Why are we so hard on others and ourselves, highlighting the imperfections?

What does a child see that we don’t see?
What standard of beauty does a child use that we have forgotten?
Why do we dissect, inspect, and reject?
Which standard is closer to God’s standard?

Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. (1 Peter 3:1-5)

Your inner self.
A gentle quiet spirit.
Unfading beauty.
Great worth in God’s sight.

Vein-y legs are insignificant.
Soft around the middle is a badge of honor.
What does God see?
Maybe we need to pray that we begin to see that, too.

Children get beyond the pretense.
My own mother’s litmus test was to see whether children or dogs liked you.
She always said you couldn’t hide who you really are from a child or a pet dog.
They simply intuit what is trying so desperately to be hidden.

I like that litmus test.
Being seen with all my imperfections and being loved anyway.
That is exactly what God does.
He does it perfectly.

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8)

God sees our imperfections and He loves us.
I imagine God saying it just like the little child.
You are be-au-ti-ful! I love you.
That kind of love is so freeing.

You accept it.
You treasure it.
You believe it.

You are loved by God.