A Fish Out of Water

A Fish Out of Water
Family Matters

By Amy Gentry

 

The only thing I love more than a day of shopping at the mall with my daughter is a ROOT CANAL without pain killers using slimy, rusty instruments!!!  So I jumped at the chance to give my 16 year old daughter the freedom to go to the mall with a friend and find a Disney character costume to wear to school for the following week for Disney Day.  My daughter is a beautiful red head so the logical Disney princess of choice for her was Ariel, but how to balance artistic interpretation, school dress code and moral dress code. 

 

The girls had been shopping for hours; I’m sure giggling and trying on things that never would cut the mustard around here.  My daughter flew in the front door with bags from multiple stores and ran to her room to put away the bags.  But when she emerged from the bedroom she was not outfitted in her newest wears.  Hmmm….  I asked her to model her costume for the family while I was prepping dinner.

My stunning red head confidently emerged from the bedroom in a teal tube dress that was a size too small, and a purple bustier.  She DID look like Ariel from The Little Mermaid. 

-The artistic interpretation was realized, she had successfully shopped the mall for pieces of regular clothing that could be put together to resemble Ariel.  Job well done!

-School dress code doesn’t allow for bare shoulders, but my daughter had a solution.  To wear a hoodie.

-Moral dress code….  Hmmm…..

We are different.  In 1 Peter 2:11, Christians are referred to as aliens and strangers in this world.   “So brace up your minds; be sober (circumspect, morally alert); set your hope wholly and unchangeably on the grace (divine favor) that is coming to you when Jesus Christ (the Messiah) is revealed.  [Live] as children of obedience [to God]; do not conform yourselves to the evil desires [that governed you] in your former ignorance [when you did not know the requirements of the Gospel].  But as the One Who called you is holy, you yourselves also be holy in all your conduct and manner of living.  For it is written, You shall be holy, for I am holy.”  1 Peter 1:13-16 AMP

"When you did not know the requirements of the Gospel?”  Is dressing modestly a requirement of the Gospel?  No.  But God does ask for us to be holy because He is holy.  Holy means being set apart as consecrated.  There is something special about God, He is holy.  Likewise, there is something special about you, you are holy.   

                                                                               We are fish out of water.

                                                                    AND IT’S OKAY!!!