Faith and Broken Toes

My sister and my niece are both very stylish, trendy and fashion conscious.  They pay great attention to what’s in when it comes to clothes and accessories.  I, on the other hand…not so much.  Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE clothes!  I dream of walk-in-closets filled with my stuff.  (I have nightmares that one day I’m going to show up to my early class wearing Dan’s pants because they hang right next to mine, and the nightmare is that his pants DO fit me!)  The thing is that where my sister and niece are glamorous and certainly “urban-chic” women, I am more of the “thrift-store-chic” kind of girl. 

I don’t spend much money at all in clothes.  I bargain hunt.  I’m not afraid of buying “twice loved” apparel.  I am able to have a nice selection of clothes without the added cost.  It makes me feel good about myself.  It makes me feel proud.  I boast on my ability to not be a slave to fashion.  I laugh at those who waste exorbitant amounts of money on materialistic pursuits.  I scorn those subject to Vogue Magazine’s whims.  I am beyond that.  I am above that.  I am immune to that.

The funny thing, however, is that a recent incident helped me re-think the image I’ve constructed of myself as Mrs. High-n-Mighty-Thrift-Store-Queen who is immune to the tricks of fashion.  This incident taught me a lesson in humility and showed me a different reality about myself from that which I had proudly concocted in my imagination.

The lesson began when not long ago, my sister told my niece and I that she had fallen victim of fashion…pun totally intended… : )  She works at a car dealership in Panama; and apparently, while she was walking in her fashionable high-heel shoes through the garage section of the dealership, she tripped and fell.  As a result of that fall, she broke several toes…ouch…

Her message was followed by my niece Nicole’s own stories of the broken toes she’s had due also to high-heel incidents and other various scenarios that I can’t remember.  I quietly read their back and forth accounts of their broken toes, laughing in my head, thinking how silly they both were. I felt a tinge of superiority as I thought, “it serves them right for not wearing sensible shoes.”  Who is foolish enough to end up with broken toes due to fashion? Suddenly, a flashback came rushing through my mind. 

I was in 8^th grade.  I was getting ready for school.  I had spent a considerably long amount of time wrestling with my hair.  My hair has always been a point of contention in my life.  It still is, but now I just don’t care.  I gave up a long time ago.  But back then, I was so frustrated with it, I didn’t know what to do.  So, there I was, staring at my mane on the mirror until I finally got it to a point when I didn’t feel embarrassed.  I didn’t have any hair spray in my bathroom, so I went to my Mom’s room and found hers in her beautiful vanity.  I sprayed myself into a cloud.  I had lost track of time, so when I heard the beep of the school bus outside, I panicked.  I ran.  I didn’t have my shoes on.  I ran into the legs of my parent’s 100% mahogany bed with my foot.  I broke my middle toe.

I remember vividly the pain as I put my school shoes on (I wore uniform so I had to wear black moccasins).  I remember walking down the long driveway, limping.  It even hurt to take a breath…

How could I have forgotten?   After I re-played my very own injure-by-fashion episode in my mind, I looked down at my left foot and there it was.  There was my permanent reminder of my incident, my middle toe forever leaning on its big brother to the right.

I was not immune to the powerful influence that fashion exerts in the female psyche.  Regardless of what I may want to believe about myself, I am as preoccupied with looks as anybody else.  I was back then in 8^th grade, and I still am today in my middle age.  I worry about it.  I care about it.  I think about it.  It impacts my life the same way it impacts other women’s, right down to the broken toes.

I, however, also know what the Lord says,

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?   "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? (Matthew 6: 25-30)

His Word is clear; we are to trust Him because everything comes from Him even our clothes. We are not to boast about anything, but only about Him who is our strength, our guide, our inspiration, our Provider, our Redeemer and our Salvation. I want to trust Him. I want to rely on Him. I want to believe in the assurance of His provision. I want to have peace. I want to be still and know that He is God and that He is in control. I want to believe what He says. I want to rest in His shadow and take refuge in Him, my Tower of Strength. But I too falter. Often I fall prey of the schemes of the enemy who deceives me into doubting God. Often I forget that His plan is perfect and His grace is sufficient. Often I am one with “little faith.” Often I am the one with the false sense of pride.

This broken-toes incident has showed me, once again, that no matter how much I like thinking that I got things figured out, I really don’t. I am humbled in His presence and I admit that I only know that I know nothing.

Humbly with the Lord is the only way to walk on the road to sanctification. I could never overestimate myself. I can’t ever elevate myself, for in God’s Kingdom, the way up is down on our knees, and the way to life is dying to self.

After I was done reminiscing, I typed my very own fashion-injury story to my sister and niece. It was then their time to laugh at me. It was then my time to laugh at myself.