When I was a little girl in the 80s we dressed up for church. I wore itchy tights and lacy dresses with poofy sleeves and big hair. I still can’t understand how my mom managed to use hot rollers and hairspray on a six year-old. I’m pretty sure if I tried that with my daughter she’d end up in the ER pretty quickly. But I loved getting dressed up for church. It felt special and fancy when my Monday through Saturday gear was mostly t-shirts and jeans.
I went through a time in high school when I didn’t want to get dressed up anymore. Other kids were wearing jeans to church and we were all about being “authentic” and “accepting ourselves” getting dressed up seemed like a remnant of the past. Even the adults were starting to dress down for church. As much as I pushed against it, my parents wouldn’t budge.
Photo by Rebecca Tredway Photography
When my husband and I were newly married and in our early twenties we went to work at a children’s home. We became instant parents to six young men and were now responsible for making the rules about what was acceptable to wear to church. In the days since our youth, church had become increasingly an informal experience. The kids we were raising hadn’t grown up in the church, so it was all new to them and they only knew this current version. We went back and forth about how much of an issue to make out of what they wore, since we knew God was more concerned with their hearts. It also became an issue because many of our kids didn’t own dress clothes and we’d have to purchase things specifically for this purpose. Was it worth it? Did it even matter?
Then JR came to live at our house. JR had grown up in a bizarre home environment. To this day I struggle with knowing how to put the pieces together in a way that makes sense because the stories we heard were so strange. The bottom line is that his mother didn’t seem to care much for him and in the year he lived with us, she never once attempted to contact him. He had been raising himself under her roof for quite some time and during those years, Jesus found him.
JR was wounded and angry and resisted anyone who wanted to love him, but he had a soft spot for Jesus. And because of that tenderness to Christ, JR would dress up for church. It wasn’t something we asked him to do. None of the other youth group kids were doing it. In fact, JR would be more dressed up than the pastor on most Sundays. One week I finally asked him about it. “JR, getting the other kids to put on nice clothes for church is like pulling teeth. Why do you always make it a priority?” JR said something I’ll never forget. “Miss Maralee, a man died on the cross for me. The least a brother can do is put on a tie.”
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