Feathered.... with light-ups! Have you EVER?

It was April 21, 2005. My husband had a Company Awards Trip that he'd won to Las Vegas. It went totally against all of my want-to. I felt it an evil place. My thinking was that if the world themselves calls it Sin City, then what business would I (being a Christian) have visiting and vacationing there? How would the Holy One of Israel approve of my going? Should a princess to the Heavenly King place her presence upon the soil named for its reputation? I just didn’t feel it right. I fussed and fumed and was determined that “I shall not be moved” and would not go… But I was moved and went anyway... My husband wouldn't allow me to stay home, even against my most aggravated refusal not to. Please forgive my throes of rebellion. I did submit to my authority. I've repented for my uppity goody-two-shoes self-righteousness. I'm ashamed of my actions. I did go. I went! 

Now, if you're not completely repulsed by my uppity-ness. Stay with me here, the story gets better.

One night while we were there we had a formal affair that my husband and I were to go to. No one gave me the memo that it was an all black affair! I thought “Black Tie” meant dress-up! So dress-up I did! And it didn't go unnoticed! 

We were late. Tim had not tried his Tux on before leaving our hometown. In retrospect, he should have. It was too small. It took us way too much time to try to force buttons to connect to holes that were a far stretch from where we needed them to be. Our whole entourage of office people were waiting on us when we got there. We were to have a group picture made before the festivities began. On the backside of the pool area there were these two huge curved staircases coming down. All of our group (about 150 of us), except Tim and I, were already posed on its steps starting from the top of both staircases going all the way to the bottom. They were crowded. Hot. Squished. Sweating in the sweltering heat. All standing stiff in their ‘black-tied” dress! Totally stuck in their posed places awaiting only our arrival so that the snap of the camera could capture its moment, and they could all unfreeze from the frame where they had been strategically put. 

On our way to the stairs, we had to walk past this huge pool area. Pools on either side of us. There was a concreted path between the two. I saw them (our party) before we got there. Instantly I began to panic, “I can’t do it! I can’t do it!” Zillions of them (it seemed!) ALL clothed in black! Every last one of them. All, that is, except the one that was coming. ME! The only thing that kept me from turning around and running was because my pride in covering my pride overshadowed my other pride. The whole company was attired in black, while I pranced to meet them garbed in the palest of pinks. Sequined, no less! And with a skirt full of feathers!

Yes, you read right. Feathers!

Ya know??!!!! What can I say?

All night long not one person mentioned my dress. Not that I wanted them to necessarily say something, but I was so different from everybody else's that I knew they noticed, and with their not mentioning it... well, it was even more obvious that they were pretending they didn’t to save my face. You know what mean? It wasn’t a good sign! Its silence said to me: “Oh, how embarrassing!” Because with their silence I knew that even they were embarrassed at the dress I had chosen.

And if that weren’t bad enough....

Before we had gotten to the steps to where they were frozen, as we were walking through the pool area (after I had been horrified at noticing all their black), all of the sudden all of the people lying around the pool started sitting up in their lounge chairs. Some started standing. They began clapping and cheering and yelling. Hooping and hollering. Making an awesome show and noise to applaud the thing that had captured their attention. I turned around to see what all the hoop-la was all about that had warranted such applauding, such praising, such yells……… and saw nothing there when I turned. Oh my goodness! IT WAS ME that they were applauding! I could have died! If I could have willed it hard enough to be so, I would have had the concrete open and swallow me up to take me to my death!

I don’t know how I made it! Poor Tim, he was just letting me hang onto his arm and he was walking with me as if there was not a thing different about us than all of the rest of them. Walking as if everyone else out there was dressed in feathers too! Walking like it was the most normal everyday thing to wear! I felt like a bird that had flown in from the South to a flock of birds that was of a whole different color! Featherless birds, no less! Bless his heart (and mine too!)! It’s a wonder he didn’t make me stay in the room.

He’s got another trip to go on this year, and he has already told me that I didn’t have to go if I didn’t want to. Well, I wonder why!!!! Actually, no, he didn’t say a thing, and he’s invited me to go this year too; but I wonder if he wonders what I’ll wear? And being that I’ve begun to awaken to myself, I wonder too! And I wonder if later we’ll both wonder why we let me?

Hold on. That's not the worst part!

I had had to wear the highest shoes that I could find (because you can’t hem feathers!!! That so should have been my sign!). When looking in town it took me forever to finally find heels high enough to keep my dress (rather my feathers!) from dragging. I finally found some stacked heeled acrylic Cinderella-looking shoes and bought them. And though I didn't realize it when I was purchasing them those Cinderella looking things were light-ups! Horrors! and I wonder still: What was I thinking??? This was NOT what God meant in Psalm 119:105 when He said, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path!” He did not mean me for me wear the lights as light-ups upon my feet as I went!

Dawn (a friend of mine) was appalled before I even left town. She had so wanted to help me with this. She had so tried to find some shoes for me. She wanted so badly to save me from my horror. And I never caught on! I wore them anyway! When I got back I told her, “Dawn, I don’t think they ever even noticed that my shoes lit-up. Nobody said anything.” And she said with brows raised to the roof and with an expression that gave more emphasis to the mere words that she said: “And they wouldn’t have either!!!”

Basically, my INNEST-IN was way too exposed OUT! Even Jesus kept His Glory zipped hidden in human skin…. And there I was in front of a hundred and fifty people that my poor husband works with (and zillions more around us in the place where we were staying) showing full glory! I had people pointing at me through the windows! People gathering around, shading their eyes so that they could see. What could they say?... And so they didn’t!

I stayed horrified for a while. Ashamed. Embarrassed. And then, I changed my mind. I liked my dress! I liked my feathers! I liked the color! I was even okay in my light-ups. I felt pretty. I felt like I was Cinderella dressed for the ball. I did get lots of attention. So many compliments. NOT by Tim's co-workers, but from others in our prestigious hotel. For some reason I gained lots of respect. I was greatly admired. And was treated as a princess. So, I decided to feel good about it, and shine in my rarity of moments. Matter-of-fact, I feel it's how I was meant to dress! And I wondered why we don't get to dress as such more often?

Hmmm... one day our Prince will come! Riding on His white horse! With trumpets blaring! A feast spread on the table awaiting the celebration. A Home prepared. And garments of white that's sure to be gorgeous! Wow... wonder what that moment will be like? Wonder at the Beauty we'll behold and the beauty we'll feel? I so often wonder what it will be like beholding the face of my Savior! Our God on His glorious throne! The angels around Him singing His praises. The pearly gates and the streets of gold. Speechless! I'll be totally speechless! I can't wait for that Day... of no more tears, no more sorrow, no more death, no more disease........ LOVE ~ in all it's purity! The end (or really the beginning) of the real fairy-tale that's better than the ones found in storytime books. Oh Lord, I love you so! I can't wait for Your Face to behold!