When I Thought Holiness Meant Hiding

I’ve always been a fashion person.

Even before I really understood what that meant, I loved putting things together. Clothes. Jewellery. Colours. Styling. The little details that could completely change how something felt.

It was part of how I expressed myself.

I styled myself. I styled for business. I shared outfits on social media. I enjoyed getting dressed and creating looks.

It was just… me.

Then I got saved.

And somewhere at the beginning of my church journey, I misunderstood holiness.

I thought becoming a woman of God meant I had to become less of myself.

So I started changing the way I presented myself.

I stopped wearing my jewellery.

I stopped dressing up.

I stopped being as expressive with my style.

I became much more reserved with the way I looked because, in my mind, this was what being a “holy woman” looked like.

But there was a problem.

I didn’t feel like myself.

There was nothing wrong with wanting to honour God with how I dressed. But somewhere along the way, I had confused honouring God with erasing myself.

I thought I had to become less stylish to become more spiritual.

Less creative to become more holy.

Less expressive to become more acceptable to God.

And I remember one particular moment that stayed with me.

I went to a Passover meal and, for the first time in a while, I decided to get all dressed up.

I wore my jewellery, I dressed nicely, I styled myself and felt like me again.

Someone commented on how good I looked and said something along the lines of, “Your looking good. You’re definitely going to find yourself a husband.”

And without really thinking about it, I responded:

“I‘m dressed up for God. He’s my husband.”

At the time, I don’t think I realised how much that moment would stay with me.

But something shifted.

I began to understand that God wasn’t asking me to reduce myself.

He wasn’t asking me to throw away the creativity He had placed inside me.

He was teaching me to redirect it.

And I began to hear something in my spirit that changed the way I saw myself:

Don’t reduce yourself. I created you this way.

The creativity you have didn’t come from nowhere.

The eye for beauty, The love for colour, The ability to put things together, The joy you get from creating, The way you notice details other people might overlook.

I put that in you.

And yes, I had used those gifts for many things throughout the years.

But now I was learning something new.

What if I used the gift for the One who gave it to me?

That changed everything.

I stopped seeing fashion as something I needed to suppress.

I started seeing creativity as something I could steward.

I stopped dressing to prove something.

I started dressing as an expression of who I am.

I stopped asking, “Is this too much?”

And started asking, “Does this honour who God created me to be?”

And those are very different questions.

Because holiness isn’t about becoming a colourless version of yourself.

It’s about becoming more like Him while becoming more fully in who He created you to be.

There is a difference between dying to yourself and erasing yourself.

God may ask us to lay down certain things, behaviours, desires and identities that don’t belong to Him.

But He doesn’t ask us to throw away the gifts He intentionally placed inside us.

In fact, I think sometimes the very thing we are trying to hide is connected to something God wants to use.

Your creativity might not look conventionally “spiritual.”

Your gift might not fit neatly into what you’ve seen in church.

It might look like fashion.

It might look like writing.

It might look like business.

It might look like hospitality.

It might look like music.

It might look like design.

It might look like your ability to create beautiful spaces.

It might look like the way you bring people together.

And sometimes, because it doesn’t look like what we traditionally associate with ministry, we can assume God can’t possibly be in it.

But the Father knows why He made you the way He did.

He knew what He was putting inside you.

Before you ever understood your gift, He understood it.

Before anyone else affirmed it, He saw it.

Before you knew how to use it, He already knew where it could take you.

That’s one of the things I’m still learning in my own journey with God.

I don’t want to spend my life trying to become someone I think looks “holy” while completely missing the woman He actually created.

I want to give Him all of me.

The creative me.

The stylish me.

The quiet me.

The expressive me.

The woman who loves beautiful things.

The woman who loves learning.

The woman who loves creating.

The woman who is still becoming.

Because my creativity doesn’t compete with my relationship with God.

It can become an expression of it.

And perhaps that’s what the Lord was teaching me at the beginning of my church journey:

Don’t reduce yourself for Me.

Instead, bring Me what I put inside you.

Let Me teach you how to use it.

Let Me purify it.

Let Me redirect it.

Let Me show you what it looks like when your gift is no longer being used simply for yourself, but becomes an offering to the One who gave it to you in the first place.

So yes, I still love fashion.

I still love jewellery.

I still love getting dressed.

I still love creating.

But now I see it differently.

It’s not something I have to hide to prove that I belong to God.

It’s something I can bring to Him.

Because the Father who created me is also the Father who placed the creativity inside me.

And I don’t want to reduce what He created.

I want to steward it well.

Maybe holiness isn’t becoming less of who you are.

Maybe it’s allowing God to transform you into the fullest expression of who He created you to be.