What Makes Your Favorite Jeans So Great? 

by Texas Stready

 At Christmas a few years back I got a pair jeans that instantly became my favorite. I loved the way they fit, the color, the texture, the length—they were fab. Then tragedy struck. My second time wearing them I slipped in a puddle at the gas station and blew out the left knee. Trashed

Your favorite jeans. You know the ones. They’re soft in all the right places and get along well with just about anything in your wardrobe. The All American look. Boot cut, mid rise, skinny leg—we got ‘em all. The huge selection often leaves the most certain of shoppers scratching their heads.

In A Glance

What feels good in an instant rarely lasts. The reality of wrong moves often leaves our lives in the dumpster waiting to be hauled off and destroyed. Creepy place to find yourself. I know—been in that can more than once.

What takes us from treasured to trashed? A negative text that repeats in our skull. This sorta thinking does to our minds what a bad perm from the 80s did to our hair. It leaves our reasoning under-wrapped and over-processed. Fried.

No matter how loud we keep the distractions, Satan’s repetitive racket continually sings a song of hopeless rejection. It plays on and on, until we excuse the sound as if it’s reasonable background noise. Dangerous practice.

Put Your Foot Down

Often, we allow these lies to repeat in our minds until we think we have no choice. But this too is a lie. We always have a choice. Will we keep jamming to that old tune or will we change the station?

I know how uncomfortable change can be. I traveled the same stinkin’ path for so long that just looking at the offramp horrified me. Everyone told me how much better life could and would be if only… All good info but no one can wear my circumstances but me. I’m the one who makes the decisions for my life, and until I ask for help I can’t receive it anyway. Learned that one the hard way.

This not-so-fun fact is true of everyone. No matter what your struggle consists of, only you possess the power to say, “enough is enough” and change your look.

The Trip

The wear and tear of walking through life, that’s what makes our favorite jeans so great—isn’t it? Changing our perspective on the problematic areas of life happens one leg at a time, but with the help of our Creator it can be as easy as pulling on our favorite pair of jeans.

Consider this: why do we glorify the blemishes on our jeans, but criticize the scars on our lives?

• The things we suffer shape us. We are individually and uniquely designed for a specific task. The perfect fit, shall we say. James 1:2-4 VOICE.

• Our minds are the most powerful tools we possess. Change your mind, change your actions. It’s as simple as that. Proverbs 23:7a VOICE.

Forsaken or Favorite—You Choose

Love. That’s what enabled me to artfully adapt the jeans I’d ripped into a personalized fashion statement. Instead of trashing them at the first sign of weakness, I loved them so much I busted out the razor and made them wearable. With a few extra slashes, what was once seen as an accident I now sport on purpose.

God does this exact thing with the torn-up areas of our lives. Learning to go with the flow of the Spirit smooths out the rough edges of wrong choice and makes tolerable the stiff stitches of consequence. It breathes fresh excitement and unique enthusiasm into every one of our mistakes.

Favorite jeans are a must-have. Why? Cause life with nothing but new and unfamiliar duds is much too tight and stuffy.