How would you dress your feelings?

Dress-ups and play-likes --- we all grow up doing it. A little girl twirls around in her pretty new night gown - feeling like a princess wearing a make-believe crown. And a small boy wields his sword or shoots his gun and kills his invisible foes and all of his enemies. It's that feeling inside that seems embedded in all of us. I think it's an innate knowing that we're made for a kingdom. That we're made for royalty, made to be warriors, made to serve some sort of lord, made to wanna rescue, made to want to aid, made with not only a need to be saved but with a want inside to save. Made for kingdom's business. And we want to dress like our feeling. We want to dress one way.... but all the while we're taught that we have to wear something else. So we wear the clothes that our moms make us wear, and long for the attire that we feel that we're made for. Hiding the prince and the princess within. Then after a while when it's been long enough and we've worn this earthly attire for such a long time, it begins to seem more normal and natural and more real to us than the one that we're birthed feeling that we ought to be wearing. But which is it really? Why are we all born with such a feeling? Might it be because we're "made in" God's own "image"? Could it be because our insides know better than what our outsides show? Could it be that in each of us that there's something that just knows?

"Jesus prayed to His Father saying, "My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it..." (John 17:15-18)

"You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God...."(1 Peter 2:9)

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.Put on the full armor of God...For our struggle is not against flesh and blood,but against the rulers, against the authorities,against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes...."(Ephesians 6:10-17 )


What is that? The princess / warrior thing inside each of us that we all seem to be born with? Is there something inside us that just knows without ever having to be told? And in each of us there's something else too... something inside us that longs for good endings and "happily ever afters." Might this be the reason for that:

"He [God] has set eternity in the hearts of men;yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end."(Ecclesiates 3:11)

Hmmm... is that what it's called? "Eternity" that's been set in our hearts? Doesn't that seem to you that that's how and why we know?

What is it that lives deep within you... that often longs to come out? What's the form of your wonder? If it had clothes on, how might it manifest itself on you? What's your "look"... if you were dressing to look as you feel?

Life happens. And life has a tendency of beating us up and we're left with all sorts of feelings. We run the gamut of happy, sad, laughter, crying, hurt, mad, playful to not wanting to be played with at all.... One moment can have us feeling euphoric and with a feeling as if we're soaring in the heavenlies, and the next can find us in a spiral that sends us spinning to what seems to us as the very pits of hell. I'm not talking about those kinds of feelings.... but the one you were born with.. that innate feeling deep within you... because of that something inside that just knows.

My daughter LOVES to paint faces. Mostly, her own! Can you tell? I think sometimes that we're into that too. We paint the face to hide the feeling. When sometimes it's that very painting that gives clues to the hidden feeling that's trying to be hid underneath it. But my girl here? She simply paints cause she likes it and it feels good to her! She loves it! And I have to give it to her, she's got quite the imagination. She's good at it! Last night I watched her sit on the sofa and paint her face for absolutely no reason at all, no cause, no purpose. It was almost bedtime and she'd soon have to wash off all that she'd been working hard to paint on. Yet, she painted anyway. (After such a hard weekend, I think we needed it.) So I let her without saying anything about it. I never questioned her reason or why that she'd want to. For I knew that she simply had the "want-to" inside her to do it. It didn't have to make sense. Her want-to made sense enough for her to do so. So, I sat and watched and wondered while she was completely oblivious to my watching. And I thoroughly enjoyed her frivolousness inside just having the need and wanting to show out. Then, I watched her quietly and quickly wash away all that she'd just done. But not before she made sure that my camera captured the evidence of her night's mood, for now we had memory that the night's moment existed before it was washed away with a cloth and erased from her face for forever.

 

I really don't like the whole Halloween thing. But on the Wednesday that falls close to this recognized holiday Landmark (my church family) lets the children (with all the neighborhood welcomed and invited) come to class all "dressed-up" in their costumes of choice for the night (nothing evil or scary please).... and I have to say that I absolutely LOVE IT! Why, do you wonder? Because I love to see their uniqueness! I love seeing the costumes that each individual child chooses! I love getting to see what they've picked. I love seeing them feel beautiful dressed in the thing that they've chosen! I love watching them play the role to match the feeling they're dressed in. I love it! And every year when I see this I think this all over again..... why don't we always let each other dress as we feel? Why only do we see glimpses of our wanna-be-selves on dress-up nights? The elaboration of the whole thing and the feel good you feel when you wear it thrills me. And if it were left up to me, we'd always dress as we feel. We'd out-doo ourselves in some elaborate fashion all the time... we'd DOO the hair... DOO the nails... DOO the sparkles... DOO the glitter.... DOO the total head-to-toe dress-ups.... I'm totally behind it completely! I love sequins and sparkles and bracelets and light-ups and feathers....

Wanna know what my favorite is? Wanna how I'd dress? Like I alluded to earlier, I love the whole Medieval theme... cause I love the chivalry, the whole knighthood thing - it's the princess warrior within me that is dying to come out. I'd want the princess attire.... with both shield and sword in hand upon my horse (of course!).... ready for battle and ready to serve the Lord of the Kingdom that I've been borne into. I grew up on horses... and I dearly do miss my ride!

Okay. Now it's your turn! How about you? What you would "dress-up" like if you could dress in your innest inner-inmost feeling? Write me. Tell me. Leave me a comment. Or better yet (if you have one and want to) leave a picture!


(My crazy girls.... sorry, I couldn't resist!)