Image Is Important

Lean back against that crisp, clean kitchen counter. Wrap your hands around a warm mug of coffee or a glass of wine. Pause and think. Your job is multitudinous in its layers. So many different elements play into managing your home, your family, the little world within the bigger world. Lean back and breathe and think and listen just for a moment.

Let’s talk about clothes and how to think about them. Just keep ahold of that mug or glass, this is time for thinking before we start doing.

From 2002 until 2013, I co-owned two Women’s Designer Consignment Boutiques with my husband. As believers, we wanted to understand fashion from a Biblical worldview. We formulated a fashion philosophy so that we had understanding and balance to guard and protect us in a vocation fraught with self-focused and shallow insipidness.

1. Image is important.

2. Respect

3. Honesty

First, Image is Important. It’s necessary to start here. What you put on your body is valuable. One of the subconscious effects of fundamentalism and the desire of parents to help their daughters not be one of the afore-mentioned self-focused, shallow, and insipid women is the dangerous idea that what you wear and how you wear it doesn’t matter. If you think it does matter you are worldly and thinking much too much about yourself.

While we aren’t to worry about clothing, it is important. Why?

It communicates something about you to the world.

Whether you like it or not, what you wear says something to the people around you about how you feel about the situation and how you feel about them. It either repulses people or welcomes them. Image is a form of, or an element of, hospitality. It is important. It’s not the only important thing and it’s not unimportant.

Second, Respect. What you wear is a form of communication. It should communicate respect for the situation you are in and the people you are with. Different situations have different cultural expectations. These are to be respected, not ignored. When you ignore them you are generally only thinking of yourself. You aren’t thinking about the people who you are offending or making uncomfortable. When you ignore them you aren’t being hospitable. Creating uncomfortable situations for others isn’t kind. It comes across as selfish or rebellious.

This is why we wear bathing suits swimming and evening wear at a formal party. This is why the ‘standard’ of modesty is different for those events than say having coffee with a friend or going shopping. Dressing modestly for the evening dinner on a cruise will look different than dressing modestly for church. If you try to dress the same, you’re not being modest. You’re distracting everyone from the situation at hand. Dressing modestly is dressing appropriately.

How you dress, what you wear, communicates respect or disrespect for the situation you’re in and the people you’re around.

Third, Honesty. This is where self-expression and uniqueness come in. This is where style is found, for you more fashion-interested women. If you are a casual, laid-back person, you will be very uncomfortable in a suit. Why? Because, ultimately, you’re lying about who you are. If you’re a classic, sophisticated woman and you wear distressed jeans, you’ll be uncomfortable. Why? You’re lying about who you are.

Modesty and style are all about taking the first two points and tweaking them to be honest about who you are. Doing this will give you confidence and the ability to stop thinking about what you’re wearing.

These three guidelines cover every fashion situation. They deal with all the frumpy homeschooler issues and 98% of all the modesty questions.

A word of warning, prior to 2015 when my chronic health issues reared their ugly heads, I wielded these three points like a massive ax of criticism and pride. I never left the house or allowed anyone over unless my hair and make-up were done and I was dressed to the nines. That to me was being respectful of you. Fine. But, I often assumed disrespect when others didn’t do the same. I looked down on women running around in sweatpants. Why don’t they respect all of us enough to get dressed?? I took the respect side and turned it into pride: I must be perfect, see how perfect I am? And criticism: why can’t you respect me enough to get dressed?

Then, the Lord kindly humbled me. I came to a point in my life where I had a choice between getting dressed or getting groceries. Not both. One or the other. I now often go out without makeup, limited hair styling, and yes, sweats, or my comfiest jeans. It’s not a matter of respect. It’s a matter of ability.

Oh, how the mighty fell.

The Lord used my health to help me be far more compassionate towards my fellow women and stop judging what I can only see on the surface.

Do I still stand by my three tenets? Yes, I do.

But I wield them with far more grace. Softly and gently, not chopping and crushing.

How does all this apply to HearthKeeping?

Easy enough, part of HearthKeeping is closet-keeping. This means keeping up with the condition, fit, and organization of closets and clothes. But look deeper, this is an element of hospitality and communication. What you wear says something about your husband, it says something about your home, it says something about your homemaking, and it welcomes others or pushes them away.

These three principles apply even more deeply to how we keep our homes, how purposed we are, how we decorate, how we clean. It is important how we keep our homes just like it is important how we dress. Image is important…because image communicates.

Our homes, just like our styles, need to be respectful of who lives in them and the situation they’re in. If you try to force a big group of children into a museum-type atmosphere, you’re not respecting them. If your husband rates cleanliness as the top of homemaking but you constantly put it at the bottom and the house is always dirty, you’re not being respectful. You’re being lazy at best, and at the worst rebellious and self-focused.

Our homes, just like our styles, need to be honest. If you are a comfy family that spends its home time in sweats, don’t decorate, cook, or clean in an austere manner. That’s not honest. And if you’re a minimalist, don’t try to crowd every surface because you feel like you should for some reason. Be honest about who you and your family are. If you have a whole passel of kids, don’t try to make your home feel otherwise.

This understanding that we take our image seriously, be it clothing or our home, that we are respectful and honest, creates an environment that is welcoming. People gravitate towards the genuine. They don’t like being around people or places that seem fake. They want to see and know the real you. They don’t want to get to know a fake you that doesn’t exist, nor do they want to come into a fake home. Your family doesn’t want to live in a fake home. What we wear, how we decorate, how our homes appear is important.

A word of warning, just like in clothing there are phases here, and a need for much grace…especially shown to others. Sometimes you’ll be in a phase where you can focus on these things, and sometimes you will be in a phase where you have to baby-step every element. Sometimes you will have money to invest and other times you won’t. Sometimes you will have everything organized and pretty and other times you won’t. We are finite humans. We are little, small, broken, and need to sleep and rest. This is inspiration and goals, not something we will achieve overnight or even, necessarily, keep. (I went from getting dressed every day to getting dressed once a week because of health issues. Trust me, we don’t get to keep everything we want.)

Also, who and what you are changes. The wardrobe I had when we owned the boutiques is very different from the one I have as a HearthKeeper. The wardrobe I have as a 40-year-old is different from the one I had as a 20-year-old. The wardrobe I had before I became an Auntie is very different from the one I have as an Auntie.

The house I have now is very different from the one I had as a young homemaker. It’s very different from our first apartments. It’s changed, settled, and is still changing.

Give yourself room to take in the thoughts and inspiration here. Keep leaning against that counter, sipping that coffee or wine. Don’t just start digging through your closet or your home. Let these principles simmer. Don’t take these ideals and use them as axes on one another. Don’t assume evil where evil might not be. We’re all at different levels, in different places, with different husbands, different backgrounds, experiences, gifts, and skills. Something may not be what it first appears. Go hard on yourself and easy on others.

HearthKeepers, what we wear, how we dress, both ourselves and our homes, is important. It communicates something about us and our families to the world, just like decorating, cooking, and all that makes up our family culture tell our stories. So don’t let style sit by the wayside like a forgotten step-child. Don’t think modesty is all about skirt length. Style is so much more than that. Homemaking is so much more than just keeping the four walls standing. Enjoy the importance! Embrace the importance! Be respectful. Be honest. Practice hospitality on many levels.