Looking back, indeed God had brought me a long way; He has delivered me from self consciousness and vanity (to a great degree) with regards to my dressing.
When I started being serious with God after I joined God’s Lighthouse in 2017, I wasn’t dressing as decently as I do now. There has been so much progress!
I remember that when I was little, the way my mum dressed me and the style and size of the clothes my dad bought me made me so unhappy. The idea my dad had when buying clothes was that it wasn’t meant to fit perfectly, so it would still be wearable after three years, with any amount of weight gain taken into account. I was really skinny, so everything typically looked like a bag for me. I grew up very unhappy about my dressing.
I used to sit and imagine that one day, God would come down to where I was and take me up to heaven and then I’ll come back wearing, a short skirt with high heels and a big bag of new clothes. As childish and unbelievable as this may sound, I hoped and waited for this to happen but it did not. So with this mindset, I watched a lot of ‘ Keeping Up With The Kardashians’ [an American reality television series.] TV made them look like the standard for girls as I felt they had ‘perfect’ bodies.
Because of this set standard in my mind, I tried very hard to fit into that picture. I took drugs that would make me eat a lot and add weight, but you know there are some prayers God doesn’t answer. No matter how much I ate, there are some places that adipose tissue just never appeared. Oh, shattered dreams! I resorted to researching on the net on what type of dressing would fit my body type and still make me look like ‘The Kardashians’. I changed my dressing, started wearing very tight/clingy skirts and blouses. I started showing some skin too. The skirts were usually short and only long if it was a style of dressing that needed it to be so.
Because of this desire, I was very self conscious. I was very particular about the way people saw me. I hoped they’d see me as a ‘hot chick.’ It affected the way I walked, talked and presented myself to people. I wanted to look like the standard. If my skirt puffed out or appeared loose in an area I wanted accentuated, (due to weight loss as a result of not eating very well), then I may not go to school that day. I would feel lazy and sad the whole day because I didn’t look the way I wanted to.
Then I came to God’s Lighthouse. Nobody talked about how I dressed at the initial stage, thank God, because maybe I would have never come back. Although sometimes, I’d notice some people give me some looks of disapproval, but at that stage, it didn’t make any sense. I didn’t understand what they meant.(If they meant anything at all or it was just my conscience!)Then we had a Sisters Meeting around May 2018. It was tough. Pastor said a lot of things about dressing, the right ways to dress and how Christian ladies are to present themselves. I felt so caged. I remember thinking, “Oh, Lord! this is an overly religious place.” I really had high hopes for God’s Lighthouse but hearing what pastor shared broke my heart. I was sad. To make things worse for me, when we prayed in the meeting, I saw a vision of myself dying in a very painful way. I was to, in reality, lay down my idol of self, and die to my flesh, and vanity. God was just increasing the volume so I would hear well.
There’s a difference between reacting when they’re preaching about something, and doing so when it’s actually happening in your life. Honestly I thought it was easier for you to fall under the anointing, than for you to do something like wear a loose skirt outside. The presence of God and the word shared in His House is amazing, but we have to go on from here to obey what is said! Everything pastor said was true, I couldn’t deny it. In every way, it applied to me but it was difficult to accept.
After that theory, the practicals came. Changing my dressing for real – from my skirts, to blouses, trousers, everything was going to change.
I had two sisters who were around me mostly at that time, and I thank God for them. I remember one day, I wore my longest skirt. In my head, the skirt was very long, and it was a practical step of dying to myself as I wore it. One of the sisters came into the room and said, “I hope you know this skirt is really short, it’s quite above your knee.” Hearing this, I was pained. I felt like I had been shot. The other sister who’s very blunt, came in and added, “Your skirt is short, so change it. Change your wardrobe.” There was no empathy at all. I mean that’s how I’ve been dressing all my life, how would you tell me to change it?
As usual, God is always very willing to help. Thankfully, I got some money so I was able to buy new skirts, trousers and all and let go of the old bad (indecent) ones, this was really hard. While I was buying the new clothes, I didn’t have places to go, so I didn’t feel the change that much, until the first day I wore a loose skirt out. It was very hard. I died a thousand deaths that day. I felt cold and hot at the same time as I stepped out. The guys in my class in school that already had that old picture of me saw me and were giving me weird stares and glances.
Time has passed, and it’s amazing how I don’t feel like wearing tight, clingy and revealing clothes anymore. It’s not in my mind to wear such things, I don’t even have any plan to. To come from a place of being particular about how people saw me, whether I was attractive enough and appealing enough, to a place where, I only care about being decently dressed and covered, is a big deal and I thank God.
The media makes it look like, the more appealing and ‘sexy’ you are, the more respected and appreciated you’ll be, and this is not true. I wouldn’t have been free if I didn’t hear the truth, what God says about dressing modestly, and how we must not cause others to stumble.
The change at first made me feel like I lost all the respect people had for me, I felt like a religious fanatic, even when I hadn’t even made complete adjustments as I should have. The beauty is that I wasn’t being forced, rather I was carefully shown and taught what God says. I had to make a choice. I wanted to please God, so I started to obey even though I didn’t exactly feel too good about it. Right now, thanks to God, I’m at a place where I’d rather dress decently than look trendy and acceptable to the world while being indecent.
I feel like I’m wearing clothes now, like I’m dressed because looking at old pictures made me realize that I wasn’t even dressed properly at all. I mean, I looked hungry, skinny, disproportionate… I really want to thank God for the great miracle. It was a mindset problem and the deliverance isn’t just in the fact that I’m wearing loose and more decent clothes, but in the fact that I know that I want to please God, and not cause others to stumble.
So, I’ve decided that I must dress decently no matter what!
May God be praised…
-Sis E.R
© God’s Lighthouse 2020.
