“Holy” or Holey?

For reference, these are the pants in question (this was taken at my birthday party in January). Ignore my friends making faces…

Yesterday at church, I walked in the door and went to get some coffee. Just for some background, I wear the same jeans a lot. Really, nearly every day. They are the only comfortable jeans I own (all others are sub-par and worn only in emergencies). As you should know if you’ve been reading me long, I have no money. And if you read my post about my wisdom teeth, you know that the situation is only getting worse, since I’m going to have to pay for a large part of that. I have a good chunk in my savings account, but it’s going toward my teeth. I can’t find jeans that fit me right for less than $30, and since I don’t make much and have to save for my teeth, I can’t really justify spending that much. I am aware that I need new jeans, but it’s not really a priority right now, compared to fixing my teeth. My parents are ponying up for a huge chunk of it, and I really don’t want to increase their burden ($1600 isn’t exactly petty cash around our place). Also for the record, I wasn’t just wearing jeans and a hoodie as I normally do; I was wearing a long, dress-like v-neck shirt with sort of an empire waist (sort of like the dress-over-jeans look, except the shirt wasn’t quite long enough to be a dress, at least on me) with a sweater over the top. To be perfectly frank, I looked a lot better than I normally do.

As I was walking over to the coffee bar, an older lady exclaimed, “I’m going to take up a collection for you, so you can buy some new pants!” And I thought it was funny, and I joked back to her, “What, you don’t like my holey jeans?” And then she said something that made me mad: She said, “I hate them.”  She went on to say that “in her day, people dressed up for church, or even to go to the store.  Boys wore button-down shirts and ties, and girls wore dresses” and some other stuff that I didn’t really pay attention to because I was so shocked that she would say something so mean. Why would she bring something like that up when all it could do was hurt my feelings?  She wasn’t providing a solution; she was nit-picking at my wardrobe.  It would honestly be fine for her to say that she’d take up a collection if she genuinely wanted to help me out, because I would take the help in a second–I’m not going to pretend that I have it all together and don’t need help sometimes. I would love some extra money to buy new pants… believe it or not, I actually am aware of my need for new jeans, but it’s something that’s just not really possible right now. I still have to pay for gas, insurance, toiletries, my wisdom teeth… tons of things that I actually NEED. My jeans cover my nakedness, and that’s really all I care about. Yes, there’s a hole in the knee. So should I instead wear the pair that’s too tight and sometimes shows my butt crack, or the pair that’s a little too big and tends to fall down, or the pair that’s a weird color and doesn’t match any of my shirts, or the pair that’s a little too short, so I can only wear flipflops with them? Or perhaps I should bust out the shorts early this year and display a little more of my legs.

I do own skirts, but I have issues with skirts. I can wear them sometimes, but usually when I do, I end up worrying that I’ll tuck the hem into the waistband when I go pee, or that I’ll show too much when I cross my legs, or wondering where I’m going to put my hands since I have no pockets. I really am not comfortable in my own skin most of the time, and wearing something dressy usually compounds the problem, since dressy things usually have a low neckline (and people… when you are a large-breasted woman, anything below basically my collarbone tends to be a skosh indecent. And maybe some people don’t care about that, but I do. I really would rather be covered up) or show lots of leg, or are more fitted. I already feel awkward enough just existing without adding more clothing dilemmas to my life. Add to that the fact that I went to a wedding on Saturday and wore a skirt all day, and I just couldn’t bring myself to wear one again on Sunday. I tried… I really did. I wish people could know that I try nearly every week, and I usually end up feeling awkward and fat and ugly, and just resign myself to wearing jeans and a hoodie again each week.

I’m not sure what her motivation was… she said, at the end of her little diatribe that she still loved me, no matter what I wore, so WHY DID SHE SAY IT IN THE FIRST PLACE?  Why even bring it up?  I don’t go around telling her that I’m going to take up a collection for her to buy a new sweater, because I hate the one she wears almost every week.  But here’s the deeper question: Why do people care so much about what I wear to church? One guy that used to attend here would rarely acknowledge my existence unless I was wearing a skirt. I don’t think he did it on purpose, but he did do it nonetheless. One of my guy friends told me, basically, that I was being ridiculous, and that this guy did not do that, but I noticed. Skirt: “Hey, Brooke… you look nice.” No skirt: No hello, no nothing, even if I was standing right next to someone he was talking to. And I will come right out and say it: It pissed me off. And then on the rare day that I did feel comfortable in a skirt and wore one to church, all I could think was, “Are you happy now? Am I worthy of conversation now?”

I spent my time at church either fuming or trying not to cry instead of worshipping the Lord.  And that’s not this guy’s fault; it’s because I am insecure and damaged and have a bad attitude.  But I would rather have a good attitude in my holey jeans than a crappy attitude in a skirt.  In the former, my insides are more fully able to be right (as much as it’s possible… sometimes I’m distracted in my jeans too) with God while my outsides are lacking; in the latter, my outsides look more “right” but my heart is black and hateful.  I do care what people see on the outside of me sometimes, but I don’t want to.  I only want to care about the inside of me, because that’s what’s eternal.  My jeans are not coming into heaven with me even if they were starched, ironed and unblemished.  God looks at my heart, and that’s what I want to deal with.

I am not some paragon of Christian virtue… I worry about much deeper things than what my clothing says to the people around me.  I worry that I don’t do enough to serve at church.  I worry that maybe I’m not even really a Christian.  I worry that my life doesn’t glorify God, and I worry that I’ll never be a woman worthy of my calling.  I worry that I’m not a good role model to the younger girls in my church, and I worry that I’m not qualified to teach them.  On top of that, I don’t want to fall prey to the lie that you have to look good to be worthy, and I want to teach the younger girls that they don’t have to either.  Honestly, we get enough of that from the media and our own hearts.  I do NOT need to hear that kind of crap from someone in the church.  We are to be building one another up and encouraging one another and bringing life wherever we go, not spouting condemnation and death.

So what do you guys think?  I’m inclined to think that if my skirt causes me to sin, it’s better to not wear it.  If the Bible says I should pluck out my eye if it’s causing me to sin, how much more should I excise a piece of clothing that causes me to do the same?  Frankly, I need all the help I can get.  If wearing holey jeans and a hoodie helps me to not worry so much about myself, but to focus on God, then I have to say that I’m pretty sure that’s what I should be doing.  I’m interested to hear your thoughts.