The odd one out

Yesterday I found myself driving past a business that caught my attention not for what it was but for who owned it. I used to know the couple that owns the business now. This business has nothing to do with the Lord but is, in a round about way, named for Him.

I suppose that somehow this business was started to give Him glory...I think...but like most businesses it falls short of that goal despite the fact that the owners would most likely claim to be very religious people.

Still, it's not the business that lays on my mind tonight but the people behind it. I can't claim to have ever had a close friendship with the couple, they are just people that I once had a passing acquaintance with. And it's that acquaintance that my thoughts turned to as I drove past that business. Or, it's sort of that acquaintance that my thoughts turn to.

I guess it might be better said that it was the wife of that couple that my thoughts went to and she was the starting ground for deeper thoughts that reminded me of things long past and things of today. You see, this woman I once knew, a woman that I still keep up with the highlights of her life through social media today, is a woman that I once knew and despite us both being friendly to each other we never even came close to being friends.

I don't know what the barrier was on her side and if I tried to guess I would only be speculating but I know what my thoughts were. Each time I encountered her, which for nearly a year was an at least weekly occurance, I parted company with her every time feeling like her friendliness was due to her social station and not to actual friendliness. She was always friendly in a standoffish sort of way, being friendly, acting happy to see others (not just me), and yet somehow staying well aloof of those she was mingling with. There were many times that she put me in the mind of a queen leaving her throne to mingle with her followers, forced to be friendly but really having no interest, possibly even holding disdain for, those she encountered.

I say all this not because of this woman but because those were the memories that driving past this woman's business brought to mind. I thought of how this woman and her husband owned one successful business before opening the one I drove past. Of how she once refused a gift for her baby by turning down a teenagers heartfelt gift for who knows what reason. I thought of the home they recently sold and the new home they bought, of the complete remodeling of that home that from the pictures I saw needed no remodeling although I admit that I don't know the full story. And I thought of that new home, now gutted and having all manner of things done to it as it is transformed from what it was into what is being referred to as the 'perfect' home.

And I thought of this woman, of her high dollar, fashionable clothing, of her kids that are dressed to look at though they walked off the pages of an ad for certain clothing. I thought of the expensive hair styles and... well, you get the idea, and as I thought of those things my memory turned from this woman I have only known on a surface level for about five years to the girls I once went to high school with.

I remember the cliques that ruled the school and how those cliques worked. I remembered the 'popular' girls and their personalities, and I thought of how this woman most likely was one of those girls when she was in high school. I remembered the...to borrow a friends term...frivolous conversations and the very near pointlessness of their lives. Those girls lived for the latest in style clothes, the most expensive of brands. They talked endlessly of hairstyles and makeup. They sought vanity with every breath they took and they flaunted it before all to see. Not only that but everyone they encountered was measured based on such vain things as the brand of their shoes and the cut of their tshirt. Hair that wasn't just so was grounds for total disdain.

They lived for covetousness and selfishness.

All these things went through my mind as I drove down the road. I also recalled how I cared only slightly for clothes in those days and I had already ventured into the world of makeup and decided it really wasn't all it was cracked up to be and took more time than it was worth. I wore it when it suited me and happily left it to gather dust when it didn't.

Thinking back now I recall putting more thought into my clothes in those days than I do now. I remember some of the things I wore and can't say I ever represented the latest fashions. We never had the money for such things, too many months there were bills going unpaid, to worry about expensive clothes or how my current shoes or wardrobe might not be good enough. But I remember something else too...

I remember how it wasn't only a lack of money that kept me from being what those vanity seeking girls were. It was a very near complete lack of interest in all those things that were nothing but surface level deep. Hundred dollar pants wear just as well, and often not as comfortably, as ten dollar jeans do. I know because I've had a few pair of those hundred dollar pants over the years.

I was 20 when someone else bought me a raw silk suit. I remember being shocked at the over a hundred dollar price tag and wishing they wouldn't buy it. I even recall protesting but they insisted. I gave in and let them buy it. It was bought so I could wear it to a wedding. I did wear it to that wedding and found it very uncomfortable and was more than happy to take it off as soon as I got the chance. I never put that outfit on again although I did keep it for about 14 years before finally getting tired of it taking up space in my closet and donating it to the thrift store.

Since then I've bought a few pair of expensive pants for myself, all of them picked up second hand for only a few dollars apiece. And guess what...there was nothing special about those pants beyond the brand sewn to the outside.

But those brands were very nearly life and death in high school. Wearing certain brands and hairstyles were the difference in one's worth. They were vanity in the extreme, bought by kids that weren't footing the bill for anything yet. Yet it was so easy for those kids to decide who was a 'good' friend and who wasn't worth anything based on those brands.

Believe it or not I don't write this out of any sort of malice for those people that lived that life then or for those that live it now. I understand more now than I did then. LOTS more.

And the main thing I know now is that those girls were raised in homes that must have been swallowed up in the sin of covetousness. Kids aren't born craving brand name clothes. They aren't born wanting their hair to look a certain way. Oh, I know those sins are in some of them, that time will bring those superficial things to their hearts and minds. I've seen it happen first hand. Kids raised on thrift store and low brand department store clothes soon find themselves searching the thrift stores for certain brand names and turning their noses up at cheaper department store clothes. But I've also seen kids, usually girls, raised by mothers that start them out in those high end clothes. Those little kids may not turn their noses up at used clothing or cheap brands but their mothers do it for them. Or their grandmothers do, or their great grandmothers. And in so doing covetousness and vanity and superficialness are pounded into their little heads. Then those kids grow older, they or their parents want only the best brands and styles...

And the merry go round starts again.

Another generation of coveting adults, or soon-to-be adults, step into their own wanting only the best that money can buy. And so they are lost in the sin of covetousness through their own hearts and the hearts of their parents. They are led astray without them ever being aware of it happening.

Sin is like that though, it sucks one in and never lets go unless the Lord breaks the hold. I understand that. I really do. I can and do look back over my own life and see when I was just as lost in sin, fashion was just never a part of it. I remember things I should never have done, things that ruled me. I remember being a different person than I am now. Thankfully the Lord saved me from myself. He drew me to Him when I thought it was I that was seeking Him.

And now I find myself pondering on the things that seem to make this world go round. Pondering on them and being grateful that I am the odd one out and that I do not desire those things that seem to bring so much happiness to so many people.