Color me happy.

I have been overhearing conversations lately about the way I dress. I am not joking. I have literally walked up on or turned around and found folks talking about my color choices atleast 4 times in the last two weeks. That would be enough to make some women retreat to hiding. It has been in response to yellow shorts and coral stripes and teal pop Toms and coral skinnies, turquoise tank tops, plaid button ups, and big rose stud earings... a few of my favorite things. This isn't a post about insecurity or gossip or comparison. This is not a post about what-not-to-wear. In actuality not a single person has said anything ugly. It has been more "How are you wearing that and pulling it off??  It doesn't match at all." Either way I am actually compelled to share the madness behind the shift in my own heart. I pray it is liberating for someone.

If you have been around for some time and know the me of even 5 years ago, then the process may have been so gradual that you didn't notice. But if I were to show you a comparison in photos, I think people would be surprised.
I used to be neutral obsessed. My closet looked like a brown paint sample strip. I even sorted my clothes by color and they basically ranged from white/khaki to dark espresso/ black. All of the walls in our house were coffee shades. And our furniture was khaki and dark espresso. Brown made me comfortable. I lived by the rule "stick with neutrals and accent with color." It is a great rule, but I often limited my color accents to barely shades of green and blue.

[Insert disclaimer: if you love neutrals, this isnt an attack against you, just an observation of myself.]

I was playing it safe. There is a crazy comfort in what you've always known, what comes natural. But then there's those things that call to us from deep inside- wishes, hopes, dreams, fresh perspective. Those things are color for me. Freedom is color. Jesus is color. God's presence is color. For me, as I started really chasing God, loving Him in the quiet and stillness and also the hurried craziness of life, I started seeing the colorful reality of the everyday.

I am a quilter, a lazy self-taught one, but I love it. I love it for the colors. I had a friend tell me "I don't get quilts. I don't get the patterns and the mixed matched colors." Gasp. I realized that all the things she disliked were all the things that I loved.

It was in that moment that I saw the weight and reality of what God was working in my heart. As I pray for more creativity and more vision and more Holy Spirit goodness, I get louder and crazier and more colorful. And it's ok. Because I am not afraid of color anymore. Today I wear lots of color, and our home is full of all the colors that make us happy. There's hardly a brown thing in sight, and we love it.

I am free. I refuse to play it safe. After all, the only safe I need is Jesus.

Hope this finds you changing and embracing. Happy Tuesday.