Red Dressin' It

I love watching the faces of a bride and groom at their wedding! 

Last weekend I was visiting a friend in Chicago and we watched a TV show called....American Bride....or Wedding Dresses ...something or other.  I was struck with one very awesome dress!  Most of the dresses were crazy expensive, and almost all of them were gorgeous, but there was ONE DRESS that stood out from every other dress...by a long shot.  And I found myself saying, "Man, I wish I would have worn THAT on my wedding day!"

I don't think I would have had the guts to wear it when I was 22 years old, though.  I may have been an extrovert and a sanguine (very needed for this dress), but I don't think I would have had the confidence.  A little more into people pleasing back then I was.

There is something about getting older and a little more experienced that makes you more daring, don't you think?  And, there is really something that changes in a person after the deep grief experience of losing someone very precious to you.  Losing my daddy has changed me deeply.  It makes you evaluate the way you live your life.  And, I'm telling you, if I were then who I am today; I would definitely be RED DRESSIN' IT to MY wedding!

The girl was beautiful, young, dark haired and spicy fun, if you know what I mean.  You could tell by the giant sparkles in her eye that she loved surprises...and loved to shock people out "normal" life.  She didn't settle for the same old same old.  She had no intention of letting her life be a bore.  She was all about living life to the full...full...full.  And, she just didn't care what other people thought.

She wore a red dress to her wedding!  A sparkly RED dress.  I'm no wedding dress expert, but I've never seen a red wedding dress!  She was spectacular!  And what I absolutely LOVED the most was the expression on her husband-to-be's face.  He was totally wowed.  No sooner had the look of WOW crossed his face, than he confidently nodded his head up and down, knowingly, as if to say, "Yep.  THIS  IS the woman I'm marrying in all her fullness.  The dress matches who she is."  It was a look of rightness...of authenticity...of no pretense.  What she wore matched who she was.

That's how I want God to look at me, his bride.  (The bible calls us Christians the 'bride of Christ'.  I like that honor).  I want to be wholeheartedly, unashamedly, undeniably authentic; the very person God created me to be!  No one else.  Just me.

A friend sent me a valentine card this year that said, "I love who you are."  "Wow, thanks," I thought.  Those words make me relax and breathe deeply.  I like the way God made me.  And it's a blast watching how he's made everyone else.  What a beautiful tapestry of God's handiwork we are.

Who knows how much more life I get to live on this earth.  All I know is I'm RED DRESSIN' IT the rest of the way.  Life's too short to wear what everyone else is wearing.