Who Knew Jeggings Could be Spiritual?

By Hilary Strat, FullFill™ Alliance Manager

“Great news, girls! We can each have a pair!”

Sheer excitement poured forth as my girlfriends and I discovered the very pants we had coveted on a friend a few days earlier—on sale! What was this highly sought-after pant you might ask? (Who knows . . .you might even be wearing them right now.) Jeggings!

For those of you who have not yet “experienced” a pair of jeggings, imagine a pair of pants made out of a denim fabric with the elasticity of a legging, complete with fake pockets and belt loops. Jeggings, we swore, were the most flattering, most practical pair of pants we had every owned. We convinced each other that if we didn’t already own a pair, we needed to fix that as soon as possible.

Fast forward one year: Christmas. Friends and family. And (cue dramatic music) pictures. We chatted again about our formerly favorite fashion item, but with a different attitude than the previous year. Most of us had gained weight and looked a little different than when we had rejoiced over the ease of making outfits without extra zippers and buttons. The structure of the jeans we had been wearing before our “discovery” kept us all the more aware of which foods we were consuming and the frequency with which we were exercising each week.

We came to the devastating realization that we had allowed too much S-T-R-E-T-C-H.

Many times it takes too much of a bad habit, a draining relationship or a need for control, to realize we’ve taken our lives into our own hands without seeking the Lord for structure. We think we have it all together so we move another step without asking for his guidance. We give advice, to ourselves and to others without consulting the Word. We continue to stretch the limits, leaving behind the bounds he already has in place for us.

There is safety in the structure that he provides. The Lord desires for us to draw closer to him—in our walk with him, in our relationships with others and ultimately, in the realization that this world is not enough. He is our enough. He provides the structure that this world has told us to blatantly ignore.

The jeggings gals had replaced function for fashion in the same way many of us replace God with something more “comfortable.” In the end, it turned out the structure of our good ol’ denim blue jeans was what was best for us after all.