If the Dress Fits...

Today marks a milestone in my parenting journey.

My daughter Susie and I are going shopping for her senior banquet dress. This is the LAST senior banquet-prom-dance-formal dress I'll have to shop for with a teenage daughter. I know many mothers love this bonding time with their daughters, but I have always dreaded it--especially with my eldest daughter.

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We would traipse from store to store to store as she tried on and discarded dress after dress, seeing something in the mirror entirely different from what I was seeing.

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"Isn't this cute, Mom?" she would say, modeling a hideous contraption that exposed more than it covered and sagged on her in all the wrong places.

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"Oh, I LOVE this one!" she would gush, swishing silky fabric that I could visualize flying up over her head at the slightest puff of wind. At least it would be covering her chest.

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Hour after hour, we would go through the same routine until I was ready to buy whatever she tried on next and let her deal with her Daddy.

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Susie is much easier to shop with. However her tastes run toward the eccentric, often looking more like costumes than formal dress-up clothes. But the result is often the same as it was with my first daughter--she sees in the mirror what she wants to see.

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Isn't there a little bit of teenage girl in all of us? We put on our best face, smile, and pretend we've got it all under control, even when we're crumbling apart inside. We play church, play happy-marriage, pretend we're the Cleavers when life is really more like the Osbornes. We think we're fooling everyone--even God.

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Are you seeing what you want to see when you look in the mirror? Maybe that's not what God and others see. Maybe you're wearing a dress that doesn't fit, one that isn't what you were created to wear. Maybe you're clinging to your image, your reputation, your dreams when everyone else can see it's time to give it up and move on. Maybe the perfect fit is just around the corner, but you're settling to soon.

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What does God think when he looks at your life? Does it match the plan he designed for you? It's not too late to go change clothes.

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