Take Those Clothes Off

The journey from childhood to womanhood is nothing like I expected. Honestly, most of the time, I find it hard to believe I am an adult. I feel like a little girl that has three little boys that call her mom and we play “house” every day. Except this kind of playing “house” doesn’t look like it used to when I played with my younger sister and brother. They always did what I told them to! At least that is the way I remember it. Now as a wife, a working woman, and a mother, I am learning the work of becoming.

“Becoming” has a few definitions from Merriam Webster:

becoming (adjective formal): causing someone to look attractive,having a flattering or attractive effect, suitable or appropriate for a particular person or in a certain situation

become (transitive verb): to be suitable to

become (intransitive verb):to come into existence, to come to be; to undergo change or development

When I first looked at the definition of becoming and saw it was about appearance or attractiveness, my first thought was, “That is not what I wanted,” and then it struck me! This is exactly what I want!

I am interested in the journey of the heart, the mind, and the soul; the journey that allows us to shed old clothes that are out of style, don’t fit, are uncomfortable and or maybe clothes we NEVER wanted to wear. I am interested in the journey where I find MY style, where I find the perfect fit, the clothes that are the most becoming for me, and make me the most attractive me I could possibly be.

Becoming is an action word, and becoming who we were created to be for this world doesn’t just happen. I wish it did, but the reality is from the time we are children, we are given clothes to put on, and most of the time we just follow directions and put on whatever outfits we have been told we should wear. Becoming then has to be intentional. It is an intentional shedding and an intentional clothing.

One evening, my husband and I were sitting chatting and I had recently become a huge Brene` Brown fan. I had read her book The Gifts of Imperfection and was really diving into understanding many of my cycles of behavior that were keeping me stuck. That night my husband asked me a question that stopped me in my tracks. It was as if time stopped. Tears started flowing down my cheeks, and the eyes of my heart opened.

We started talking about the Adam and Eve story in the Book of Genesis in the Bible. It is the Christian story of creation. Many know the story tells of man being created and then woman. They are told to name the animals, and that the Garden of Eden will produce all they need to be sustained. There is one tree that they are not to touch or eat, “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” If they touch it, they will surely die.

My whole life I was taught that this story had to be literal, but what if the story is actually about becoming? What if the story is about what it looks to move from childhood to adulthood? The moment when you realize you can’t run around naked anymore; you stop dancing; and your care-free, adventurous, imaginative, creative being becomes self-conscious. What if the knowledge of good and evil is the point in development when we start to realize what is right and wrong and when our conscience begins to speak to us? What if the idea that “becoming like a child” actually opens up a “kingdom” or a heavenly reality that we can live in now and forever, but many never find it, because the way is so humiliating? It requires us to take clothes off.

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Genesis 3 starting with verse 6 reads like this.

⁶ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

⁸ Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

¹⁰ He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

¹¹ And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? 

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When Adam and Eve realized they were naked, they made themselves coverings. They clothed themselves, covered their shame, hid the most vulnerable parts of them, covered their imperfections, and put on a shield of self-protection.  They hid from the world, and they hid from their Creator. Then two questions come from the Creator to his created, “Where are you?” Their response is telling. It reveals our natural disposition to life as humans. “I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”

The second question from the Creator to his created was the questions my husband asked me the evening we sat talking about this story. He looked at me in the eyes and he said, “Who told you, you were naked?”

That question rolled over in my soul as my mind wandered back through childhood, to middle school, on to high school and college, to my wedding day, and to motherhood. Tears streamed down my face. Who have I allowed to tell me to be ashamed of who I am? Who have I allowed to tell me that I am not enough? Who told me my boobs are too small? Who told me that to be loved I must be “XYZ”? Who told me I have to always be “good”? Who told me I can’t make mistakes? WHO?! This question echoed throughout my inner being and sent me on a journey to discover the clothes that I have unconsciously put on over the years that I was never meant to wear!

The most beautiful, redeeming part of this story is that the ONE that created man and woman takes the clothes they created for themselves and sheds them. In exchange, designer clothes just for them are created and wrapped around them. For NO one is allowed to clothe us except the ONE that created our innermost being and knitted us together in our mother’s womb. Whose clothes are you wearing? It might be time to take them off.

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