7 Tackles Clothing

The second month in our 7 experiment tackles our obsession with clothing.  How we have more clothes in our closet than we could possibly ever wear in probably a month's time.  At least that is what my closet looks like.  So, this month we are on a clothing fast.  With our end goal to realize, yet again, that we don't need what we have and because of that we don't appreciate what we have and are not good stewards of what we have.  Because, if we can't find the match to one shoe, by golly, there are always three or four other pairs of shoes to choose from.

This is a family affair.  Everyone is participating in some way.  Even hubby.  For the next four weeks I will be wearing seven articles of clothing.  And only seven.  One pair of jeans, a pair of sweat pants, two long sleeve shirts, one short sleeve shirt, a sweater and two pair of shoes (which we decided would count as one thing).

The kids each have four outfits one of which is for church and one of which, for the girls, is ballet stuff.  They each have two pair of PJs and two pair of shoes.  Hubby has his uniform, a church outfit, a t-shirt, gym shorts and yucky pair of jeans and another shirt of some sort and some shoes.  (He has a little more flexibility.)

We will not be doing half loads of laundry.  We hang up our clothes every night or put them neatly in a wash bucket in case we have a load of laundry.  Or, if they don't get washed, they can be taken out and put on.  It necessitates thinking and planning ahead.  I am currently in a long sleeve shirt with my black sweats.  I have realized I need my jeans for the next three days when I go out of the house so the less I wear them around the house the more "clean" they will be.  I would have wore my t-shirt but I slept in it last night and I had a full load of colored clothes so I threw it in.

Sure, the "experiments" are some what contrived.  And, really, is wearing 7 articles of clothing going to change me?  I don't know.  But, I feel we need to do something to break out of the mindset we have as Americans, as a family.

I am tired of the lack of appreciation for the basic things that we need to live yet we have in abundance and take for granted.  I am annoyed by our lack of good stewardship because we just know there is more where it all came from.

But, my main goal, is to help us truly focus on our wonderful Provider.  "So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow:  they neither toil nor spin, and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.  Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?"  Matthew 6:28-30.

Less of me and my stuff and more of Him . . .