Who's the Snob?
One of my sweet, generous friends presented me with
an unexpected gift this past Christmas. After opening the
beautifully wrapped box from a very chic boutique store I’d seen
advertised on TV (but had never shopped in), I pulled out a unique,
very hip (is that word still used?) jacket. The jacket fit
perfectly, and I really liked the unusualness of it, although I did
wonder about the practicality of wearing it as business attire to
the office. Unfortunately, I have to admit the jacket didn’t like
me. When I tried it on, it looked great from the front and back.
However, the view from the side was less than flattering. I can’t
afford to add poundage through the clothes I wear, and I felt that
the jacket made me look even frumpier than I already am.
I debated for several weeks what to do about the
jacket. I didn’t want to offend my friend by not keeping it, so one
Sunday morning I got up with the intent of wearing the jacket to
church. But when I put the jacket on and took another view of it
from the side, I couldn’t bring myself to wear it, and decided right
then that I wouldn’t keep the jacket. I rationalized that my friend would
be more offended if she never saw me wear it, than to admit that it
just didn’t work for me. What I haven’t mentioned yet is this was
her second attempt to give me a Christmas present. Her first gift
was an elegant jacket that was truly exquisite from the same
boutique, and I was heartbroken when it was a size too small. This
time, however, I decided to attempt to return the second jacket
myself so that I didn’t put my friend on the spot of having to guess
whether or not something fit me.
This chic boutique is nearly an hour’s drive from my
home, so the next Saturday I had available, I packed up the jacket
and crossed my fingers that the boutique would let me exchange it
without a receipt. Fortunately for me, this store keeps track of all
purchases made by its regular customers, of which my friend turned
out to be, so with the amount of the store credit established, I
browsed through the store looking for a replacement. After finding
about four or five pieces of clothing to try on, I let the sales
clerk know I was ready to try on clothes.
Inside the first dressing room into which she
escorted me, I noticed it was minus a mirror. When I mentioned that
little detail to the sales clerk, she said she could either move a
mirror stand into the room, or she could place me in a dressing room
that had a full wall mirror just outside the room. To save her
trouble, I chose the latter, and she escorted me to another dressing
room. At first I was really puzzled by this. Why would they make
their customers leave a dressing room to see how the clothes they
were trying on looked? After all, isn’t that a dressing room’s
primary purpose?
As I tried on each piece of clothing, sure enough, I
had to leave the dressing room to view myself in the store’s
wall-sized mirror. I’d rather view myself in the privacy of a
dressing room, but I had made that choice. But, I really wished for
that privacy when I began noticing the woman in the dressing room
next to mine eyeing me each time I modeled my clothing selections.
She was able to do that because during the entire time I was trying
on clothes, she stood outside her dressing room in a conversation
with her sales assistant.
That’s when I had my “light bulb” moment. Observing
the woman next to me, as well as the interaction between other sales
women and their customers, I realized why the owners had purposely
omitted mirrors from the dressing rooms. They wanted the customers
to have to exit the dressing rooms so that the sales women had the
opportunity to see them in the clothing they were trying on. In this
way, they could compliment customers on how wonderful they looked,
which I’m sure increased their sales. Fortunately for me, my purpose
of being in that store didn’t warrant a hovering sales assistant, so
I was able to go in and out of my dressing room without being
“schmoozed.”
Anyway, each time I exited my dressing room to check
out the clothing in the mirror, I could tell I was being watched by
my neighbor. She was somewhat subtle about it, but not so much that
I didn’t know what she was doing. Was she thinking I didn’t fit the
clientele profile? Or, was she just a nosy person?
The first couple of items I tried on were okay, but
nothing to be excited about. When I tried on the next to last blouse
I had taken in to try on, I knew I had a winner. It was also a few
dollars under the amount of the credit, so I was pleased that I had
found something that I really liked, rather than something for which
I’d have to settle.
Even though I was fairly sure I had found “the one,”
I decided to go ahead and try on the last blouse I had brought into
the dressing room. After slipping it on over my head, the blouse
felt a little snug, but being the visual person that I am, I wanted
to see how it looked on me. So, of course, I had to exit my dressing
room to be able to do that. Once again, I noticed my neighbor
watching me. No surprise there. But what was a surprise was hearing
her say “That’s too small.” I was totally dumbfounded that she had
the gall to make that comment to me. After all, we had not even
acknowledged each other before then, let alone speak to each other.
The first words out of my mouth were something like, “I had already
figured that out without your input.” But even as I said the words,
she had already returned to her conversation with her sales
assistant, and I really don’t believe she heard me.
I was still shaking my head in disbelief as I
completed my return transaction. I even debated going back to the
dressing room area and telling the woman that her actions had been
extremely rude, but I really didn’t want to open the door for a
verbal situation to occur. I summed it up by mentally calling her a
snob, and I left satisfied with that assessment.
Even while I continued shopping in some nearby
stores, and during my drive home, my mind mulled over the woman’s
words, and I kept coming back to the word “snob.” Yep, that’s what
she was. Then suddenly out of nowhere, my mind asked the question,
“Who’s the snob here?”
You see, I generally dress down on Saturdays. I
would normally have had on jeans, a tee or sweat shirt and my tennis
shoes. However, because I knew I was going to an upscale boutique, I
dressed much nicer than I usually would have on a Saturday. So
that’s why I asked myself the question, “Who’s the snob?” I had
anticipated the atmosphere and clientele of the boutique before
leaving home, so I had dressed accordingly to fit in. Therefore, I
had started wearing the hat of a snob before I had even left home.
My first thought after that realization was, “I sure
am glad God looks on the heart, and doesn’t judge us on our outward
appearance” (1 Samuel 16:7). Granted, I had allowed myself to have a
lapse of what was really important that morning. I had put more
emphasis on being accepted by women I didn’t know and would probably
never see again, than caring about what God thought of me. I wasn’t
being genuine and true to myself.
So what if I’d gone into the store looking like a
slob, or like I didn’t belong? What I wore or didn’t wear was of no
eternal value. What was important was if my heart was clothed in
holiness, purity and love. And, my less than loving reaction to my
dressing-room neighbor pretty much revealed what my heart was
lacking that morning. I could have found a way to have been a
testimony for my Lord, yet I walked out of the store thinking I was
a better person than “the snob.”
This is why I’m always emphasizing to others, and to
myself, that God’s will is a lifestyle, and the need to be filled,
or controlled, by the Holy Spirit. Being an authentic Christian is
not about attending church on Sunday and a mid-week Bible study,
wearing my best finery, or carrying the right Bible. It’s about
representing and reflecting the love of Jesus Christ with every step
I take, and with every word I speak. That’s why Paul exhorted us to
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt,
so that you may know how to answer everyone” (Colossians 4:6).
Godliness and being controlled by the Holy Spirit is always about
being in the moment, not realizing an hour later how I should have
acted or what I should have said differently.
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