Five Minute Friday - Red

Writing again this week with Lisa Jo Baker and the Five Minute Friday Crew. This blessed, beautiful place where we open our hearts and let words and tears and the inner workings of our lives bleed and flow and dance across the virtual pages. Yes, this community opens wide and invites you in to share. Come and visit and read. You will be blessed.

This Week: Red

Go

It would be a long time before I could embrace anything but black. Certainly, in the years before, when I had little to do or say with what went into the clothing of me, certainly there was color.

But when I was old enough to call the shots, old enough to make the decisions, and certainly old enough to lay down the crisp or crumpled bills for the goods, it was a sea of darkness that swam before me on the changing room floor. I often said it made dressing in the early morning hours easier. Said it made matching things easier (but really, have you ever tried matching shades of black – take my word – they’re not created equal). Said it allowed for mystery and magic and the phase of goth that extended far past high school.

And while there might have been bits of truth embedded in there, let’s face it. The real magic of black is that is can make you disappear. Make you blend into the background. Let you drift into the shadows. And when you lack confidence and every other step you take, blending, disappearing, drifting away into the shadows is exactly what you want to do.

When I started to let go of the black and the need to blend and disappear – I can’t tell you exactly. It wasn’t an overnight event. I didn’t wake one morning full of joy and confidence; singing like Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music. It was a slow, quiet awakening. A growing awareness that there was something worth having a look at inside. An understanding that God had planted a seed and a woman of worth was growing up from underneath all the silt of struggle and trial. And somewhere right about that time, my new favorite color became red.

Red purse, red boots, Chanel red on my lips and toes. Red tinted Ralph Lauren sunglasses. Red rubies in my ears. It’s amazing how a change on the outside can bolster the wavering heart. I’m now a firm believer in wearing something nice to pick up your mood, bump up your courage for a job interview, help rock your world around you when it feels like it’s going to come crashing down around your ears.

Truly, external trappings are not all. There is so much more that has grown in me than suddenly putting on a red sweater and feeling so much better about myself. And in truth, I’m just as likely to wear black as red these days anyway. But that moment of awakening was real, and it was a start. And once I took those steps into understanding my self-worth; understanding who I was in Christ; understanding who I could become through Him and in Him. Well, there’s no going back now.

Stop

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