Once upon a time, a bright, beautiful, and kind young woman wore a pretty sundress she felt incredible in. It was one of her favorite dresses. She wore it to a lot of different places and practically glowed whenever she had it on. She’d often receive compliments upon compliments about her dress and always looked good in it too.
Then one day, to her surprise, her glow was suddenly dimmed when some chatty church ladies said her dress was “too short” and “inappropriate” and that “she shouldn’t wear things like that.” This young woman felt humiliated, hurt, and filled with shame. She wondered what was so bad about her sundress. This was the first time she’d ever been criticized about what she wore and felt confused about what happened.
She learned these chatty church ladies had been shaming other women for their choices in clothing and about their body types too and would promptly address other women about what they wore and accuse them of being too much. The chatty church ladies felt powerful making others who glowed feel powerless. They thought the glow of other women made them appear dull.
The young woman in the sundress realized something.
The chatty church ladies who had a lot to say about her attire and the attire and body types of the other women whose clothing and bodies they judged, shamed, and criticized, were really women who didn’t know themselves. They were deeply unhappy with a lot of things about themselves and needed to stop putting others down. So, God intervened.
He’d known about these chatty church ladies and their behavior for a long time. He’d been patient with them too, and gave them a lot of chances to get themselves together, but decided it was time to finally step in. He struck those chatty church ladies who continually criticized and gossiped about other women with silence.
Those same women who used to run their mouths about others were unable to speak for 21 days. And if they wanted their voices back for good, they had to apologize to all the women they shamed and commit to working on changing their chatty, criticizing, and ungodly ways.
During the course of the 21 days that the chatty church ladies were silenced, the young woman who wore the sundress decided to get rid of her shame. She realized she didn’t have anything to be ashamed about or apologize for. And she knew that her and any other women she knew or encountered, could wear whatever they wanted and that if anyone, especially any of the chatty church ladies, had an issue with it, they could simply ignore them and glow anyway.
So she glowed. She also encouraged other women who had been shamed about their clothing to do the same. And the glow up was real. It even went viral… #thesundressthatglowed became a movement and the women who truly glowed knew they didn’t have to dim another woman’s glow to shine bright or be powerful. They lifted each other up and collectively, they glowed as bright as the sun.
And the once scandalous sundress became the sundress that glowed again.
The end.