Bad Slip Day
Once I worked in the governor's office as a lawyer. I was feeling my oats and so I bought myself a beautiful, expensive woolen suit. It was the loveliest outfit I'd had in years.
I felt so good when I wore it, ready for anythin
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Bad Slip Day
Once I worked in the governor's office as a lawyer. I was feeling my oats and so I bought myself a beautiful, expensive woolen suit. It was the loveliest outfit I'd had in years.
I felt so good when I wore it, ready for anything. I could leap tall buildings at a single bound. I was young and couldn't believe that life has any limits.
That particular autumn day I wore my wonderful suit to work. I worked late, until everyone else had gone. Those were pre-security days and I didn't see a soul when I exited the capitol's back door and cut across the lawn toward my car. Outside was still bright daylight.
I was halfway across this large expanse of grass when I felt something peculiar at my waist. I stopped, trying to figure it out. That was when the elastic of the old half-slip I was wearing gave up its grip. My slip dropped to the grass around my feet.
For an instant I was paralyzed with embarrassment. I stood still, shifting my eyes to look around, wondering if someone was watching me. I didn't see anyone.
Gulp. What to do?
In one hopefully fluid movement I stepped out of the poor washed-to-death slip, bent down and crammed it into my briefcase. I continued walking, head high, shoulders back, as if nothing had happened.
My cheeks flamed, though, and when I got to my car I winnipeg sat inside for a few minutes, looking around for anyone watching.
Eventually I drove away, my embarrassment trailing behind, feeling as conspicuous winnipeg as if tin cans had been tied to my bumper.
Why was I so discomfited? Did I think somehow that the incident revealed the real me? That under the spiffy suit and shiny high heels I was actually an unworthy person in tattered underwear?
Probably. During my early adolescence I was a pretty good kid, but I sometimes sassed my mother, ignored my chores and hung out around our suburban neighborhood with other kids instead of studying.
What I remember most about my dad's discipline during those years is a comment he often made when he came upon my many flaws. "Well, now we see the real Joan."
I know my dad loved me and didn't expect those remarks to affect me so profoundly, but they did. Eventually I started seeing myself as a "bad person" who needed to hide under plenty of nice-looking camouflage.
When my slip fluttered to the capitol lawn that day, I became that young girl again. The unseen watcher I scanned for was my father.
Later I came to know an unfailingly gracious Father, a God who can always be counted upon to love me exactly as I am, raggedy underwear and all.
That Father embraced me as a be
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