#simplicity

Disclaimer: This post is long. I couldn’t make it any shorter–I tried. And it didn’t make sense to break up into a series. Apologies in advance. :) 

If you’ve been reading The Evangelista since its beginning last August, you’ve probably noticed a not-so-subtle shift in content, especially during these past few months. Lately, instead of outfit posts or personal shopper posts or “pinspiration” posts, I’ve been writing about emotional and psychological health,learning to trust in God’s love,paying attention to reality in dating relationships, and other such “serious” subjects. Not exactly typical fashion blog fare. When I started The Evangelista, I fully intended to keep my posts light and fun and pretty much only about style and shopping, but the Lord had other plans (as He so often does).

Some of you may have asked if this is just a temporary hiatus or a permanent change, so I thought a post was in order to explain just what the Lord has been doing in my heart regarding clothes and shopping for them, especially this past year.

As I’ve said before, this year has been a year of Revelation for me: God has revealed His love to me in a new way, and in so doing has revealed more of me to myself…if that makes sense. One of the major revelations was that I was holding certain elements of my life back from him because I didn’t trust in his love. The first area that I finally handed over to Him was my vocation and my desire for marriage. When that finally happened, I thought I was in the clear. Surely there wasn’t anything else I was trying to control in my life? (Ha.) Wrong. Slowly but surely, Jesus began to show me a sphere of life that I had never ever EVER surrendered to him, primarily out of fear but also out of sheer selfishness and vanity: my money and the way that I used it.

I’ve long thought it providential that God called me to be a teacher in part because the limits of my salary have kept me from buying as much as I would probably have bought had I been rolling in the dough. I grew up in a fairly wealthy family where I never lacked for anything that I really wanted; my parents didn’t satisfy our every whim by any means, but I always had more than enough cute clothes. I see now that for the majority of my life, I associated wealth with security and even–to a degree–with happiness. When I was an unhappy child and teenager, one of the surest ways to put a little pep in my step was a new dress or pair of shoes. Not surprisingly, this bled over into adulthood.

 When I became a teacher seven (!) years ago and got lots of compliments from my students on my cute clothes, I justified filling my closet with more and more stuff, all the while not saving any money and tithing the bare minimum. After all, I rationalized, I HAD to look cute or my students wouldn’t pay attention to me! My focus was on quantity, not quality, and on being able to wear something different every day, and on being the “best dressed” at school, among my friends, etc. Of course I NEVER would have said that out loud, or even thought about it consciously, but now I realize that this is what I was doing. And it was out of insecurity: I was living as if I didn’t have anything else to offer to my students and friends and potential suitors but my fashion sense.

He does dress better than I do…what would I bring to the relationship? 

Fast forward about a decade to last August. When I started The Evangelista, I was no longer an insecure post-graduate in her early twenties, but I still had some very bad shopping habits and a consumeristic mentality that needed to be broken. As you can imagine, starting a style blog didn’t really help in the short term. I put a lot of (completely unnecessary) pressure on myself to keep up (insofar as my teacher’s salary would let me) with secular style bloggers in terms of having new clothes on a regular basis. I signed up for emails from countless stores, checked Pinterest with almost obsessive consistency, and read dozens of style blogs a day. All of this simply fueled my consumeristic tendencies, and I was shopping more than I ever had before. Each time one of those boxes full of goodies arrived in the mail, I got that same old feeling of security and pleasure.

In March of this year, something happened. Or rather, a lot of things happened at once (as is usually the case when we’re talking about Divine Providence). I’ll only name the two most important. First,Pope Franciswaselected as the 266th successor of St. Peter.My undying loyalty to Papa Benny notwithstanding, Francis immediately won my heart and my allegiance as his spiritual daughter and, true to form, I read everything he wrote or said or whispered. And he said (and continues to say) a LOT of things about being poor. And about being a good steward of one’s money. And about living simply. And, because he’s the Pope, I listened (note: Pope Benedict said the same things, but for some reason it has been harder for me to ignore Francis…probably because my heart was ripe for this conversion).

Wait a second, you might be thinking, Jesus said a lot of things about being detached from material things and selling what you have and giving it to the poor–why wasn’t that enough for you?! Great question. It should have been. But I’m weak, as are we all, and thankfully Jesus knew that when he appointed Peter to be the rock upon whom He would build his Church and through whom He would continue to “feed his sheep” when He was no longer on earth. Francis is the successor of Peter, so he reminds us of what Jesus taught while placing it within the context of the place and time in which we live, in such a way that makes it more difficult for me to rationalize my way into a different interpretation of Jesus’ words that gets me off the hook. All of this is to say: Pope Francis’ election was the beginning of the end of my shopping addiction.

The second big thing that happened is that the Holy Spirit convicted me in a profound way that I couldn’t ignore. It was Corpus Christi Sunday and I was praying before Mass, meditating simultaneously on Pope Francis’ witness and the really cute skirt I had just purchased, when suddenly I was filled with an overwhelming sense of guilt. Guilt for all of the money I’d wasted on myself, on things I didn’t need–money that I could/should have spent on others whom I love or on the poor or given to the Church. Guilt about the conditions of the workers who made my clothes and the fact that I had been blithely participating in a wildly consumeristic culture–and encouraging others to do so!

Being the sanguine I am, this kind of conviction rarely happens, so when it does, I pay attention. The worst part was, I knew that I had known ALL of this on a deep level for a long time but had been ignoring my conscience.  It was horrible. I felt sick. Fortunately, one of my favorite priests was available for Confession immediately following Mass. I left the Sacrament feeling so free. Free to use my money and my material gifts for God’s greater glory, not simply for my pleasure. Free fromthe hold that, unbeknownst to me, my incessant need for “stuff” had on my life.

Here I am wearing the Dress of the Summer. I’ve worn it at least once a week for three months. It’s been wonderful.

As soon as I got home that afternoon, being the choleric that I am, I went through my closet and filled five, count ‘em five, garbage bags full of clothes, shoes, and accessories. A few days later, I drove them to a local crisis pregnancy center, and the look on the volunteer’s face when she saw everything only served to deepen that sense of freedom.

Since then (that was the end of May), I’ve removed myself from all retail email lists, unfollowed quite a few folks on Pinterest, deleted all but three style blogs from my Feedly, and haven’t shopped. At all. And the craziest thing is that I don’t miss it. I haven’t even had the desire to shop. (If any of my good friends or family members who know me well are reading this, you know that this is a HUGE deal.)

This outfit will definitely be on repeat this fall. 

I recognize that this is a major period of grace in my life and that once fall rolls around, I will miss shopping a bit more than I do currently, but for now I am enjoying the freedom that comes with not worrying about buying anything new because I already have everything I need.I have all of the basics for a professional wardrobe, have plenty of outerwear and casual clothing, and that is AFTER getting rid of five bags of clothing. When I need something new, I’ll buy it, but in the future I’m going to try to stick to the following shopping “rules”: 

1) I will pray for three days before purchasing any item of clothing, in order to discern whether or not I can justify buying it.

2) I will try to buy second-hand or gently used clothing at consignment shops when possible.

3) If I buy something new, I will do my best to purchase from small companies who treat their laborers with respect for their human dignity.

4) I will not allow myself to cut into my tithing budget or my savings to pay for clothing. (Yes, I used to do both of those things.)

This one too.

So, where does that leave The Evangelista? I still love express my desire for beauty through the way I dress and I still care about not looking like I’m stuck in 1995, so that hasn’t changed. But I won’t be primarily blogging about clothes and such anymore. This transition has already begun, thanks to all of you and the feedback I’ve received on my most recent posts. The beautiful thing is that I didn’t decide one day that I was going to stop writing about fashion–the Holy Spirit moved in my life and simultaneously gave me opportunities to write posts like “Stop Guarding Your Heart and Start Paying Attention to Reality”. Gotta love Providence.

In the future, I will only be posting when I am moved to share the Beauty I have encountered in my life while trying to follow Jesus and His Church, failing to do so, and starting again after receiving his forgiveness and mercy…with a healthy dose of “Hey Girl” memes thrown in for good measure. :)  I figure that God allowed me to make the mistakes I did and suffer in the ways that I have in order to share the Good News that He can redeem it all and replace the ashes of life with so much beauty. Sometimes that will mean two posts a week, others three, sometimes only the links round-up on Friday (which I can’t quit because I have so much fun putting them together). I’ll still post links to (ethically produced) shops and such on my Facebook page, photos of the occasional outfit on Instagram, and I will happily answer any and all style (and life) questions via email. 

Whew. That was probably the toughest post for me to write yet (yep, even tougher than the therapy one)! Thank you so much for reading! Let’s pray for each other: that we can resist the glamor of evil and the false promises of security that the world gives us and cast ourselves completely into the arms of God, trusting that He is all that we need.

Blessings,

Christina Grace

P.S. If you have any questions about this post or want more details (believe it or not, the above is the abridged version of my story), please don’t hesitate to emailme!

Here’s the thing:
I don’t think I believe in Fate anymore.
None of this “the universe brought us together for a reason,” “we were made for eachother,” bullshit.
I like your vibe. I wanna be around that shit. Let’s not make this more than it is. Let’s keep it simple.