The-bra-ology

By Abbey 
Like Caitlin, I am also stalling but I think this is a pretty important thing to stall on.

I'll bet you are a little curious about what I mean by titling this posting "the-bra-ology." It is my term for the ministry I do from the fitting room of a world class bra retailer. My ministry has offered me many opportunities to see the work of God in many strange and wonderful places, circumstances, and people. It has become a huge part of how I understand creationism, the body of Christ by caring for our neighbors in intimate ways, and other theological topics. Let me tell you a little bit about what I've seen and how it impacts my theology.

I see women every day of all different shapes and sizes. Some of them make me a little sick because they are so perfectly, physically beautiful and confident. Others make me a little sad because they are not nice to those who serve them (i.e. me and my co-workers). But the third group of women I have worked with have touched me and my life forever.

They are the women whose physically perfection means nothing but who are beautiful, if not breath-taking, in a totally different way. They teach me something. They have shown me God's love and have allowed me to show them the same. Let me give an example:

A couple of years ago I approached a woman, we'll call her "Jane," who was walking around near my fitting rooms looking concerned, embarrassed, and definitely uncomfortable. I asked if I could help her find something specific and she reluctantly told me she had no idea what she needed. We ended up chatting for a minute as I was fitting her and she began telling me about her recent struggle.

Jane had been in a car accident that had debilitated her for a year and she was just recently walking again. During this rehabilitation period she had gained about 40 lbs and was ashamed of herself. She confessed that she hadn't let her husband touch her in months because she was so self-conscious about the weight she had gained. Jane ended up in tears by the time she had finished telling me all of these things and I felt honored to be invited into the depth of her pain with her. It was a glimpse into the life one of God's children who needed companionship and to listen to confession.

There, standing in the fitting room, I fulfilled her need. I met her where God called me to meet her. Just before she left the store, Jane came back to me and thanked me, telling me that she felt like she was worth something again. She told me that it was the first time she had felt beautiful in many months. Also, she told me, with her husband standing next to her, that she wasn't ashamed anymore.

This is one instance where I saw God in a ministry that I wasn't expecting to be a part of. I would have never thought in a million years that God would make an act of fitting someone in basic intimate apparel such an intimate moment in the lives of two of God's children. I relearned the concept of beauty because Jane felt beautiful. I relearned what it meant to stand beside someone and walk with them in their pain. I relearned what it meant to love someone as a sister in Christ.

Meeting Jane was one of many examples of women who were newly liberated from abusive situations, and from their own self-consciousness. I have met women who have worked really hard at losing weight or fighting breast cancer. Women have invited me into their struggles with body changes associated with pregnancy. At times, women have shared with me the struggle with embarrassment they felt before having augmentations. These women have come in all shapes and sizes. They have been television actresses, massage therapists, EMTs, lawyers, engineers, mothers, wives, daughters with "new" bodies, aunts, and friends. They are strong, intelligent, loving people who at times have seen that strength in me, too. There have been women who have asked to pray over me and my ministry both at the store and in the world and have stood there and laid hands on me when I have a day of struggle. God sends those people to me when I am most in need.

God tends to do that though. God reaches out and shows us that we are created beautifully and intricately. God created us as Psalm 139 beautifully depicts, saying, "Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me...you hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made...intricately woven into the depths of the earth."

We are created by God! How much more beautifully and perfectly can we be made? God has showed us in spite of physically perfect models that anyone can see walking through my retailer's door that it is through communion, not idolized perfection, that true beauty is found. When Jane hugged me, confessing and crying that I had changed something for her, when self-conscious teenaged girls leave walking a little taller, when new brides feel like they will be the most beautiful woman in the world on their wedding day, when my co-workers are lifted up, when I can talk about God to women who ask what I do, that is where God's work and the Holy Spirit are truly alive.

Thanks to these women, I have learned something about my pastoral presence and authority through a world-class retailer. I have learned about leaning on those God puts before me to cheer me on. I have learned that God gives us a body of brothers and sisters in Christ to learn from. I have learned what it means to see the hand of God. I have learned about true beauty. Thanks be to God.