Christ: Our Model

So last night at The Refinery planning meeting (The Refinery is a service at my church that pretty much rocks my socks off) we decided that if someone wanted to take charge of a specific week for the next series as far as creative planning, then they could. We are talking about Philippians and one of the weeks is Christ: Our Model - it's based around Philippians 2 - the whole chapter. There's a key verse, but it's one sentence and I think it really needs the context of the entire chapter to work for what we're doing.

I don't have any ideas as of yet, but I know that I want to take some time to talk about other models we look to who are not ideal. I know a lot of people look at Tyra Banks (I admit, I watch the Tyra Show AND ANTM), Oprah Winfrey, and more as models. And as a woman, I look at women a lot - who do I want to be like, emulate, look like, and more.

I remember, as a kid, my mom used to ask me what all the other girls at school were wearing when we would go shopping and I would never know the answer. I just wanted sweatpants and hoodies. It made my mom nuts. But I really never noticed that stuff. It's hard for me to look at clothes and not faces - but something sad has been happening. I've been noticing the clothes. I've been longing to look better, sharper, have more pretty clothes and clothes that fit, and it's sort of a hard balance.

Right now we are pretty much poor.

I don't mean to say we don't have a nice house or anything like that, because we do, but we are REALLY scrimping since I quit my job. I haven't been able to buy any new clothes since my daughter was born, so I'm in stuff that is mostly too big for me since I've been working to get back in shape. I don't like how I look.

I'm also on this kick where I'm really trying to define who I am as a person and I know that most of my clothes don't define me at all. I bought most of them for specific occassions, or for work, or because they basically fit and I just wanted to get out of the store, or because they were cheap and okay looking. Now I want clothes that are ME.

I want to design my own clothes kind of. I want to buy fair trade clothes so I know they weren't assembled in a sweat shop by some children getting paid 2 cents a day for a 12 hour day. Those clothes are expensive, but I think it would be worth it if I could swing it.

The other thing is, here I am, saying that beauty isn't about your clothes, or your hair, or whatever, and I'm wanting a whole new wardrobe.

The thing is, part of the new clothes thing is self respect. That doesn't mean we go out and spend a ton of money on clothes because we respect ourselves, but it does mean that if we can, we should buy clothes we can feel good about, that fit us, and that express something about us. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Not sure why all of that applies to Christ being our model, but I guess everything applies to that, right? If we are to do thing as Christ would - then there you go. We need to be sure we aren't modeling ourselves after some worldly ideal, or by "what all the other girls are wearing" or what Carson says looks good on us. We need to be true to ourselves and to the person that Christ wants us to be.

Hopefully I'll be posting more on this as I actually delve into the chapter and my daughter takes an actual nap.