Author: Kayley Chartier

I'm Kayley: Former English teacher and Bible nerd extraordinaire. I am so glad you're here!

Dressing for Delight: How theology can positively influence fun with fashion

My dad read a few book series aloud to me when I was a kid, but my favorite was Anne of Green Gables. I remember when Anne Shirley asked for a dress with puffed sleeves, a part of my little heart jumped up to say, “me too!”

I’ve liked clothes for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I would spend afternoons on the floor of my mom’s closet, admiring the patterns and textures of the beautiful dresses that hung there. Ten years of consistent community theater participation also gave me an appreciation for the importance of costume design in painting a complete picture of a character.

When characters from favorite stories captured my heart, I longed to wear patterns, textures, and silhouettes that resembled them. I remember wanting to wear a yellow dress for my 8th grade graduation so I could match Luna Lovegood’s Deathly Hallows wedding guest gown from the book. The specific shade of yellow I wanted was hard to come by in 2010, and I ended up hobbling to the stage on crutches with my newly sprained ankle in Bella Swan’s green taffeta dress from New Moon. When it’s warm out, I still throw on a tomato-red plisse number that reminds me of Buttercup in the Fire Swamp.

When I entered my teenage years, I battled with how clothing also signified identity and status. For example, when the charter school I had enrolled in for 7th grade banned branded clothing from its dress code, I flung myself onto my bed and cried. How else would everyone know that I was a poser-surfer without my embossed Hollister sweatshirts?

Oh dear.

Then there were the well-meaning Christian bloggers and their long lists. The conversation then was generally around what not to wear; rarely did anyone bring up the art and the joy of dressing beautifully and appropriately for the setting and activity. In my teens, my own legalism kept me from wearing makeup and leggings, even in situations where it was completely appropriate to do so. I call these bloggers well-meaning because I do believe they were trying to give young Christian women guidance in a grey area, but their teaching was often narrow and legalistic.

Legalism seeks to keep the believer safe from sinning by putting words in God’s mouth, but leaves little room for discernment through actual relationship with Jesus. So while one might seek to honor God with how they dress, devoid of the conviction and communion of the Holy Spirit necessary for discernment, they can still be acting in legalism.

I still do value modesty, but I see it now as a heart posture of reverence and humility before God, rather than a long list of dos and don’ts or a specific length of hem.

Not the main character: the concept of the daily costume

These days I see clothes as one-part creative outlet and one-part daily costume. The difference between costuming a character and dressing myself is that I bring the day ahead to the Lord and ask who He needs me to be at this moment in His story. In one sense, I am a character in the story, but I know I am not the main character. That’s important.

The conversation goes a bit like this:

“Jesus, what do I need to do today? And who have you made me to be? How do I reflect that?”

Maybe it sounds weird, but through this perspective, I feel like I finally live in clothing freedom, no longer using clothes to define my identity, but instead to express it in a way that is useful, creative, and (hopefully) reflective of who I am in Christ. It’s not rooted in striving or shame, but in meaning and security. It’s not derived from the clothes I wear, but rather from the grace Jesus has clothed me in (Isaiah 61:10).

Here’s how I choose outfits:

  1. I ask myself what the plan is for the day. When I was teaching high school, I adhered to a business-casual dress code. Most people loosely interpreted this to mean no jeans and sneakers unless it was Friday. Now that I get to work in ministry, my range of choices is much broader. If I’m writing check requests in the office, a comfy dress just is fine, but if I’m painting a backdrop for the high school room or playing a muddy group game, I need something more rugged. Though I try to be practical, my choices can still be somewhat tailored to my style preferences.
  2. I check the weather. Because duh.
  3. I delight in beauty as a form of worship. Once I’ve determined an outfit “type,” I can move on and think about what I like. Which patterns am I drawn to? What historical moment would be fun to channel today? I am a self-proclaimed fashion history nerd! This is the personal style element that makes getting dressed fun for me. Lately I’ve been enjoying bright colors. Years ago, I wouldn’t be caught dead in baby yellow or pink, but now I embrace how these colors make me feel and worship God as I think of the joy color brings me! To delight in beauty and attribute it to the Lord is a form of worship I think we all need in our lives.
  4. I remind myself that I serve Jesus. Modesty-culture wounded so many with arbitrary rules. While I no longer agree with many of the bloggers I learned from in my teens, I still strive to serve Jesus with my outward appearance. I think the key determiner between legalism, moral relativism, and freedom in this area comes down to who I am really trying to please. If I wear whatever I want with no regard for anyone else because I have the “freedom” to do so, I am probably not putting Christ first (see 1 Peter 2:16). On the other hand, I could also be piling on unnecessary rules for myself and others if I leave Jesus out of the conversation. For example, I might make up a rule about avoiding the color red because of its association with lust (yes, I’ve heard this one 😆) and distort the actual gospel, which says NOTHING about avoiding this color. I’ve found that it actually takes more effort to invite the Holy Spirit into the equation than it does to just rule out pants or mascara. Anyway, all this to say that I try to make sure I am dressed appropriately for the occasion, and I ask the Holy Spirit to convict me if my motives are off. It’s simple, but it does require relationship with Christ to be at the forefront. I do think He cares about what I wear, but Jesus cares most about the inner workings of my heart (1 Samuel 16:7).

Personal inspiration

I gravitate toward spring colors, rustic textures, knits, delicate lace, and anything that reminds me of literary characters I love. I especially like overalls (give me all the pockets), midi dresses, crop sweaters (very versatile when you’re petite), quilted fabric, and embroidery!

I thought I could also include a few of my favorite outfit formulas. Consider these my uniforms.

A few example uniforms

Dress and sweater combo:

Dresses and skirts with t-shirts or on their own:

Overalls:

Fun jacket:

Western details:

This was technically a theme party, but all of the pieces are totally wearable separately!

Freedom and fun

Fashion is one freedom issue that has long been a source of pain in the church, particularly for women. It doesn’t have to be. When we seek God for discernment, we can still delight in beautiful things, living out the good works He has set before us with freedom and joy.

I am not the main character. Thank goodness that Jesus is! But I am a beloved part of the story—a story of the lost getting found, of those under the law coming under grace, and of those living in ashes being given an inheritance of everlasting beauty and joy.

I want to tell it well, to be clothed first and foremost in Jesus, and to point to the Savior of the story with all of me, even with the clothes that I wear.

“I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.” (Isaiah 61:10)

No crying He makes?

The littlest shepherd in the front row tilted his head as his pillowcase head covering fell over his eyes…again. Angels in garland halos sang while a 5 year-old Mary carefully rocked the Jesus doll. It was a chaotic, adorable scene, and the congregation was delighted. 

I sat on the floor in the front row, trying to help the kids with their cues. When the song “Away in a Manger” came on, however, a familiar line removed me from the moment:

“The little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.”

Really? The baby Jesus didn’t cry? Whoever wrote this poem must have never flown in economy. There’s an implication that comes with this idea that the baby Jesus didn’t cry—that Jesus wasn’t totally human. And while I’m sure the author was just trying to complete the rhyme, it makes me wonder how it affects us when we forget the humanity of Jesus.

Credits go to Pastor Rene for capturing myself, Elizabeth, and Yolanda all trying to get the kids to smile, sing, and stop whacking each other with their shepherd’s crooks.

There’s a name for this doctrine: the hypostatic union, which describes the dual nature of Christ. It means Jesus was both fully God and fully man. 

This doctrine doesn’t simply make me feel better about myself in that, in my humanity I have put myself closer to Jesus. It means that He has intentionally, and at great cost to himself, put himself closer to me. 

It means that when I was highlighting scripts for the narrators an hour before the Christmas Pageant started, crying behind a music stand because my mom has a terrible disease I cannot heal, Jesus was close to me.

The truth is that Little Lord Jesus did not stay little. He grew. He became a man called the “man of sorrows” and one “well acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). In taking on humanity, Jesus did not save himself from suffering. He didn’t rescue himself from the cross, but went there willingly out of love for us. For you.

Glossy images of a soundly sleeping baby in a serene stable (it was most likely a cave) probably do not accurately depict the first Christmas, and thank God! The scene of the first Christmas was more than likely a mess, much like the world Jesus entered into to redeem. 

So to you who shed tears this year, remember Jesus, both in the manger and on the cross. The God-man who wept understands and stays near (Hebrews 4:15). He has given the ultimate gift. And one day, when we are fully in his embrace again, we won’t cry anymore (Revelation 21:4). 

A lifetime’s not too long

I used to think experiencing Jesus took place only in solitude. I had no problem with seeking Him in the early hours of the morning, armed with my coffee and a little notebook and whatever questions I had to ask Him. But whenever it came time to gather with a congregation, for example, I just didn’t know how to engage. I took the “my Jesus, my Savior” lines from Darlene Zschech’s “Shout to the Lord” to mean, “my Jesus, and only mine; what can’t it just be us in heaven??”

To be honest, I didn’t like to have to share my Jesus with other people, and the idea of opening up about my faith to someone who could so easily pick it apart made me squirm. For a long, long time, my heart, and therefore my faith, was a private affair and I liked it that way.

It took years of trying and failing, trusting, hoping, being disappointed, yet still finding the courage to try again to learn that there are still priceless treasures to be found in the raw and messy business of friendship.

Take my dear friend, Daryl, for example. We started out as teaching partners—one room apart in the English Department hallway, decades apart in age. I have never known and been known as well as I am by this friend. It’s a tremendous gift that with her, I am safe to absolutely lay my heart bare, no matter what. And it’s not because she is perfect (although some days I kinda do think she is), but because she really loves me with the love of Jesus.

We have wept together and laughed so hard we couldn’t breathe. We’ve graded papers and done laundry together. We share a love of plants and stories and little animals and British humor. At the center of it all is Jesus: His beauty, His truth, His love. Yes, I do experience Jesus in solitude, but I also enjoy Jesus when I am with this friend.

We are a lonely society keen on making every part of our lives public EXCEPT for the very most important parts of us: our real selves. And I get it. Humans will disappoint us. They will hurt us at one point or another. And the inner parts of us shouldn’t be made available to just anyone.

However, I still think it’s worth the risk to find people who will protect, and even sometimes gently correct you because they truly love you. It’s why the Psalmist writes that, “faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Proverbs 27:6a). Someone who is just in it for vibes and good times can’t do that, and someone who is not interested in true friendship as Jesus describes it won’t be ready for that level of sacrifice and accountability.

I think that’s the beauty of real, Christian friendship. It’s not just about feeling good about ourselves. It’s not just about not being alone. Jesus himself describes true friendship as the act of laying one’s life down for someone else. In a stunning reveal, he explains that that was what he came to earth to do, saying, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

Friendship on this side of Heaven is not perfect, but it can be good, and it’s worth the mess, the mistakes, and the time it sometimes takes to find a good fit. Because a friend who will love you, truly love you with the selfless love of Jesus, is worth all the treasure in the world.

🌸🌸🌸

Some verses to help you further explore the topic:

Proverbs 17:17 “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.”

Proverbs 27:5-6 “Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.”

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.”

Bonus little tidbit: Here’s the song that’s been running through my head as I wrote this. It’s a classic. Enjoy!

He’s in the boat: On doubting Jesus, cancer, and river rafting

Ten years ago my dad took my sister and I to a little Mexican restaurant on the side of the road to break the news. Mom had been in the hospital a few days. There were tests, and the tests came back; bad news. A lot of that month is a blur for me, but my mom can recount the events with such clarity, no surprise there. I struggled then to understand her peace in the moment. This was stage IV cancer, for crying out loud! Ten years on, and a little further down the road in my own walk with the Lord, I understand her a little more only because I know Jesus a little more.

This is the original scan of mom’s tumor. We remarked the black cross drawn across the length of it as an accidental symbol of hope—but is anything accidental with God? No. 🙂

For instance, I know Him as the one who has provided, and is still providing, very, very expensive cancer medication. We’re talking medication worth thousands of dollars–sometimes as much as $16,000 for a single dose. And even though insurance has tried to cancel coverage many times, it always comes through. That’s Jesus.

I also know Him as the one who sends the right person at the right time to call or text or visit. In the early days, one dear friend who has since gone to be with Jesus intended only to stop by to drop off some soup mix. She stayed and ended up providing so much more with her gift of company and community. That’s also Jesus.

What sticks out to me most has been watching my mom’s trust in Jesus has grown. My mom is famous in our family for stopping in a store and talking to a woman for about 5 minutes, finding out that she is currently battling cancer, and then praying for her on the spot. I think God keeps sending her these people because He knows she’s not ashamed to tell them about what He’s done for her. I’ve witnessed this kind of organic, on-the-spot ministry dozens of times. That’s the work of Jesus in her being used to serve others.

Failure to trust

This week marks 10 years since our family was shaken, broken, challenged, and yet changed by God’s utter faithfulness. And with so many tangible examples of the goodness of God to my mother alone, you’d think I’d never struggle to trust God again for anything.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Because although I still have my mom, so much is uncertain and there is much to lose. I have a husband who wants to work a dangerous field, and I have hopes for the future I’m worried won’t be realized. The political climate is more tense than ever, and the “wars and rumors of wars”1 Jesus mentions in Matthew don’t feel so literary anymore. I read stories of tragedy and pain weekly, if not daily. Sometimes I feel ashamed that my heart is so heavy, inwardly asking, where is God in this mess?

Maybe you’ve asked God the same thing.

Gently down the stream?

This photo kills me. The rapid was called Troublemaker: a class III-ish rapid on the South Fork of the American river. We are getting thrashed and this dude in the background is just chilling, unbothered. 😂

A few weeks ago, we took our youth group to a climbing, camping, canyoneering, and rafting adventure camp. It was the kind where you sleep on the ground, drink water out of a little tin cup at dinner, and get to be unburdened by emails and cell phones and other modern annoyances.

I was excited to take another fun and meaningful trip with the students, but I’m not exaggerating when I say that I have never been so incredibly scared to do something in my life, specifically the river rafting. I’m not a strong swimmer. Water in general freaks me out. I think this summer I jumped off of my grandma’s diving board for the 5th time in my entire life. But fears must be faced, and Jesus can be trusted; what better way to face them than with the group I’m constantly telling to trust in Jesus?

The night before we rafted was hotter than hot, but that’s not why I wasn’t sleeping. I pulled my towel up over my head and pulled out my forbidden cell phone. The glow of the screen hurt my eyes as I clumsily typed into the search bar,

storiiies of christiaans with anxiety whit water rafting

I couldn’t believe it when a podcast link came up. Not only was the podcaster a Christian–she had just rafted the exact parts of the river my group was about to do! I lay on top of my bag and listened to the episode probably 6 times before I drifted off. Did I mention that that episode came out the day before we left on our trip? Or that that podcast’s usual content has nothing to do with rafting?

Yeah Jesus, I see you. That’s the first way I saw his faithfulness that week.

Peace like a river

The second way was on the river itself. On day one, we rafted the South Fork of the American, and day two was the famous Middle Fork, home of several well-known class IVs.

Day one panned out to be much more relaxed than I had anticipated. The water wasn’t terribly rough, and I knew that the stakes weren’t as high as they would be on the Middle Fork. I texted family from my sleeping bag the night before to pray, specifically for a fairly technical rapid called Tunnel Chute, which is famous for dumping rafters into the white water.

On day two, we stood atop the cliff overlooking the Tunnel Chute rapid to discuss things like paddling technique and safety measures, what to do if we fell out, and how many times to sing “Happy Birthday” if the river punched us into the deep hole at the base of the falls. Weirdly enough, I felt peace come over me, even though I had been shaking with fear minutes before. It occured to me how strange it is that scripture describes the peace of God like a river, because the water below me looked angry.2

We entered the boat. Our guide reviewed the commands one more time: right, left, forward, high side, get down. My boss Steve encouraged me to keep my eyes open– and man am I glad I did. It felt like only seconds of rowing in sync had gone by before we were instructed to get down and hold on, our guide still standing in the back working his tail off with his paddle. We dropped down the falls fast, the water roaring on all sides. Cold water washed over our heads. Suddenly the right side of the raft started to come up and I was sure we’d tip, but we didn’t. Out of the four rafts in our group, not a single person fell out. With shouts ringing off the tunnel walls, our boat shot down to the bottom of the falls in a nearly flawless run.

“That’s my first clean run of the season,” our guide admitted later with a laugh.

He’s in the boat

I think the best part of the trip was not even the thrill of the rapids themselves–although I still see tackling the class IVs as the coolest thing I have ever done. My favorite thing was learning how to trust the guide.

For example, I knew that the guide’s job was to direct us in the safest direction possible, but didn’t expect that to be smack-dab in what looked like the craziest part of the water. If we were moving forward, backwards, or even spinning in circles, our job was to do exactly as the guide said. If he said to paddle right, we paddled right. If he said to get down, we wedged our feet in and dropped to the bottom of the boat.

Yes, we were at the mercy of the river, and some rapids were more technical and had “more consequences” than others, but we also had an excellent guide who was trained to read the water and lead us in safety.

And he was in the boat with us.

My heart was overwhelmed as I realized how much closer Jesus is to me in life, whether the water is rough or smooth as glass.

“It is I. Don’t be afraid”

Matthew 14:22-33

Jesus and Peter on the Water by Gustave Brion, 1863

Matthew’s account of Peter walking out to Jesus on the water is usually told with the takeaway that if we keep our eyes on Jesus and not on the waves, the waves in life will not overtake us. I think my rafting trip helped me to see the story a little bit differently.

First of all, we know that Jesus was not afraid of the waves because He created them. He knew that He had authority over all of creation; Jesus was perfectly safe there.

After scaring the living daylights out of the disciples by walking, phantom-like, across the stormy waters in the middle of the night, Jesus calls Peter out onto the water with him. I think it’s important to note that the wind didn’t die down here. The external dangers didn’t just go away in the presence of Jesus.

In verse 30, it says that when Peter saw the wind, “he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”“3 Right then, Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. What had never occurred to me was that Peter was actually safest on the water. There was no place in the universe safer for Peter than beside Jesus.

The view from my mat at camp.

For so much of my life I have given my fears far too much ground. Like Peter, I have stayed in the safety of the boat in disobedience, but that’s only caused me additional pain and confusion. What the wild waters of the American river taught me was that I am the most secure when I am trusting Jesus, doing what He says–whether that be to paddle right, left, forward, high side, or get down. I am most secure in Him, even if the wind and the waves don’t go away.

Whether it’s stage IV or a class IV, and even if my worst fears are realized, I know that I know that Jesus is in the boat with me, reading the water, looking out for strainers (that’s a fun bit of river-speak for “obstructions”), and working His tail off behind me–because the Savior who draws near truly loves me. He has saved me from death, and from a life of fear.

I can trust Him.

So can you.

2 Because he bends down to listen,
    I will pray as long as I have breath!
3 Death wrapped its ropes around me;
    the terrors of the grave overtook me.
    I saw only trouble and sorrow.
4 Then I called on the name of the Lord:
    “Please, Lord, save me!”4
5 How kind the Lord is! How good he is!
    So merciful, this God of ours!

-Psalm 116:2-5

  1. Matthew 24:6, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.” ↩︎
  2. Isaiah 66:12 ↩︎
  3. Emphasis mine ↩︎
  4. Emphasis mine ↩︎