A Dress Code for Homemakers: How to Be Beautiful Inside and Out

I hope you don't think I'm going to start listing articles of clothing that are/are not acceptable for a homemaker to wear. You see, there's more to what we wear than just what goes on the outside, although I'll be talking some about that too.

Before I am a homemaker, I am a follower of Christ. Scripture instructs each of us, male or female, homemaker or not, to put on certain things:

1. Mercy, kindness, humility, longsuffering, forgiveness, and love (Colossians 3:12-14)

There are many instances throughout the day that require us to portray the characteristics of mercy, kindness, humility, longsuffering, forgiveness, and love.

We can only display these when we are walking in the power of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:16-23.)

If we get up each day and forget to put on these things — if we walk around garbed only with our own strength and willpower, then when the annoyances of the day start to come at us, it is likely our reactions will not be very beautiful.

However, when we have clothed ourselves with the inner beauty that only the Holy Spirit can create, its loveliness will outshine even the most beautiful outward adornments we could wear.

2. The armor of God (Ephesians 6:10 – 18)

Friends, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. We wrestle against the devil's attacks against our minds.

He knows that he has been defeated. He knows that we belong to Christ. He knows he has no recourse other than to tell us lies about who we are. 

He accuses us.
He shames us.
He burdens us with guilt that is no longer ours to bear.
He tries to make us forget that we have all the power of Christ within us.

In this way, he seeks to make us ineffective. He knows we do have all the power and authority of Christ and there is nothing he can do about that, so the only weapon he has is to try to make us forget to walk in that power!

We must armor up. We must put on the proper attire which will allow us to deflect the lies of the devil.

Read: 2 Corinthians 10:1-5

3. A smile

It can be easy as a homemaker to focus on the little irritations of the day. Someone tracked dirt on the freshly mopped floor; the laundry is piled up yet again; it's time to make another meal and the kitchen isn't yet clean from the last one. Or is that just me?? Sometimes I realize that in the middle of it all I'm wearing a scowl on my face!

When I focus on all the things that go wrong about my day, I can end up pretty grouchy, and it doesn't look very pretty on my face. (At least, I assume it doesn't. I don't particularly enjoy it when other people scowl at me!)

Do you do this too? Do you find yourself forgetting to smile?

When you pause for a minute and find something to smile about, you'll look a whole lot nicer and you'll feel better too. I have a child who has almost a permanent scowl on their face. (We are working with this child about this.) But when this child decides that they have something to smile about, their whole appearance changes! They look so pleasant! Guess what…when I'm the one who is scowling because things aren't going my way, then I'm the one who's not very pleasant to look at! I can improve my appearance a whole lot just by counting my blessings and then reminding my face about them.

*Note: I want to make it very clear that I am not talking about plastering a fake smile on your face or trying to manufacture joy out of thin air. Sometimes there are legitimate things to be sad about, angry about, or grieving over. There is a time for everything, including less-than-happy emotions (see Ecclesiastes chapter 3). I am speaking here of being aware of our attitudes when we're simply choosing to be grumpy because we just plain old want to be grumpy.

4. Appropriate attire

I think sometimes people subconsciously conflate June Cleaver homemaking with being a Spirit-filled homemaker.  While I do believe in looking nice and putting effort into our appearance, I don't believe that wearing heels and pearls makes one a Godly homemaker and wearing spit-up stained pajamas makes one an ungodly homemaker.

That doesn't mean you should intentionally be a slob. It just means that as Christians we don't live by a set of rules. We live by the Spirit. There are a wide range of clothes we could wear. They all have their purpose, and we each have the freedom to dress the way that makes the most sense for us.

Dressing nicely is not a requirement for a homemaker —  beauty truly does come from the inside.  At the same time, sometimes putting in a little effort on the outside can make you more productive and pleasant.

Appropriate attire might be yoga pants one day and a nice outfit the next. So much depends on your season of life, your to-do list, and your personal priorities. There's not a right or a wrong way. 

Some of the clothing resources I use to fill my closet with comfortable, yet stylish clothes:

1. Stitch Fix is an amazing styling service to help you find beautiful clothing. You fill out your style profile, basically clicking on pictures of clothes you like and don't like, then you fill out a little questionnaire, and a personal stylist will pick out flattering outfits for you and send them to you. You can try them all on, and the benefit of doing so at home means you can pair it with other items in your wardrobe to see if they match or look well together. You'll only pay for the clothes you keep, and the rest you can return for free in the bag they provide.

You can see a more in-depth post I wrote about Stitch Fix here.

If you want to give it a try, you can get a $25 credit when you sign up through this link.

 
2. Wantable is another clothing subscription site similar to Stitch Fix.

I wrote an in-depth review of Wantable here.

3. Thredup is  an online thrift store, and I use it if I have a specific color/article of clothing that I'm looking for. It's a bit more expensive than going to Goodwill, but it saves me a ton of time if I need something specific. I can use the powerful search features at Thredup to quickly find exactly what I'm looking for.
I've written a post about how I shop for specific outfits at Thredup here.

What kind of attire do you wear in your home? Are you dressed with the beauty that can only come from a spirit-filled life? We do not have to beat ourselves up when we don't measure up to our self-imposed standards. Instead, we can let the beauty of Christ fill our souls and radiate to those around us.