Every Tuesday morning -immediately after I post my latest blog- I ponder what to write for the following Tuesday morning...As always I am writing from the honest and real perspective of a 23-year old Christian fashion designer; experiencing life in a way that not many others can relate to. If you’re a Christian young adult, odds are (statistically speaking) you don’t know what it’s like to work or even exist in the Fashion industry. And if you work in the Fashion Industry, odds are you look at me and don’t understand why I believe what I believe or why I live the way that I do. Why I don’t fall head first into the wonderful, glamorous world of labels, alcohol, limelight, and inevitably; sex and drugs. Not that the fashion industry is really like that anymore-not like it was in the seventies and eighties and maybe even nineties. But regardless, I’ve always felt like an outcast to at least some degree in whatever situation I found myself in. It was in the discomfort of being in that position though, where I finally found where I truly belonged and Whom I truly belonged to.
This past Sunday, I was baptized for the second time in my life. The first time I was baptized without any say in the matter, as a mere child not knowing why I was being submerged or splashed or whatever it was, in (I assume) “holy” water. Frankly, I’m not even sure if I was baptized as a Catholic or as a Christian. Either way, that one doesn’t count in my opinion. The second time, however, was completely intentional, as I was the one who chose to willingly be submerged in water, only to come out a confirmed, true believer and openly expressing my love for Christ (and I can only imagine what you might be thinking right about now if you’re an unbeliever)...
This is the most current point that I am at in my relationship with God, but for years it was anything but story-like.
My Testimony
If you live in New York, for the most part I would say you’re more than likely raised either to be Catholic or Christian. Most stereotypical big Italian families are raised Catholic here, so it was almost inevitable that my dad grew up in this manner. My mom, though she’s anything but Italian, was also raised Catholic. It wasn’t until they got married, had me, and then temporarily moved out of state that they saw what it was like on the other side--that is to say, what it was like to become a born-again Christian. So, soon after their marriage and family began, their eyes were truly opened to Christ and from that point on they decided to raise me (and my future siblings) according to how God wishes for us to be raised as Christians.
While I absolutely love their entire story of how they both came to Christ -not my weak attempt at an abridged version- it was unfortunate in a sense for me that they became Christians after I was already born rather than knowing Christ as Lord and Savior before I came into the picture. My parents were great in doing all that they could to read to, teach, and pray with my brother, sister, and I, but being that they were still somewhat young in their own faith, it was difficult for them to really instill in us all that we needed to know as young, malleable children. I remember sitting in the adult services at an old Baptist church we used to go to when I was only five or six years old. I would fall asleep on the hard, wooden pews, trying to get comfortable while dismissing the vague musty smell of mothballs that wafted through the air. The service was generally too difficult for me to comprehend so there wasn’t much else for me to do there anyway. On the car ride home, my dad would put on “Hide ‘Em In Your Heart: Bible Memory Melodies (Vol. 1)” by Steve Green and I would roll my eyes the whole time (for whatever reason my angsty phase must’ve started early on in my childhood). Fifteen minutes later I’d come home to my refrigerator to grab a slice of school-bus-yellow, deliciously-artificial American cheese and eat it straight outta the clear plastic wrapper. Ew, yuck…(That detail was completely irrelevant but thought I’d share as that memory just popped into my head for the first time in a while)...Looking back, I feel as though we never truly belonged to a church community, even if we did attend a particular church for a number of years.
A few years later at a different church my family and I went to, I remember going to Sunday school and mostly hating it because everyone else could recall every book in the Bible and were all friends with each other and sang songs that I didn’t know the words to. I dreaded every second of it because as I mentioned earlier, I never felt like I belonged to them. (Little did I know that I would be feeling the same way on my lacrosse team almost a decade later, but for much different reasons). The only time I truly enjoyed sitting in the church basement on Sunday mornings was when the main youth pastor and his wife started telling us stories of the Bible. For whatever reason, I still remember him trying to make us laugh by telling us jokes about what he thought heaven is like: angels sitting on top of clouds, playing their harps and eating Philadelphia cream cheese...and then he would go into his main point and relate that to the stories in the Bible so that we actually learned something. Those were some of my earliest memories of my faith and although I didn’t think much about what it meant to be Christian or even pay attention to what everyone was trying to teach me the way that I should have, deep down I always knew in my heart that God was there and that His Son died on the cross and rose again...whatever that meant...
For all of my childhood, I had various Christian sources to turn to whenever I had a question or needed guidance, but yet I somehow always found myself trying to learn the whole Bible on my own. As I grew older, I became more enthusiastic about being Christian and yearned to become saved, but the concept of being saved or “born again” felt completely unattainable to me...especially since I was too embarrassed to ask my parents about it for whatever reason. I wrestled with this confusion and unsurety for so many years that it wasn’t even until college that I came to have any sort of clarity.
Now I can’t exactly recall what my “faith” was like in between my childhood and the several years to follow. But I guess this question of “how do I become saved?” really started bothering me in my late teen years to the point where I just couldn’t rest until it was answered.
It was in my second semester of college that my family and I started going to the church that we still attend today. We returned from our “hiatus” as we stopped attending church in New York (for various reasons) from when I was in fifth grade and temporarily lived out of state, basically up until I graduated high school and, well, moved onto college. For a while, I had been wanting to go back to church as I had been reading the Bible every Sunday in lieu of going to any sort of service or youth group, but it didn’t seem to have gotten me as far along in my faith as I wanted to be. I mean, I was able to comprehend a lot more as I grew older and asked God to help me understand His word, and by that time I had digested a lot more of what any pastor had to say if and when we did attend a church for a random weekend. But at this point in my life, I was really craving to be in the Lord’s presence and still deep down had this burdensome fear that I wasn’t going to heaven because I didn’t know how to truly be saved. (Plus I will admit that I was looking for a boyfriend at the time and thought church might be the answer to those prayers…). The first few weeks that we attended in January of 2017 was the point in which my walk with the Lord truly became real to me and I finally felt like I was heading in the right direction.
In addition to becoming a regular church-goer, by this time I had also developed a close relationship with my uncle (the designated fun uncle in the family) who lived out of state but still talked over the phone several times a month to make up for the distance between us. He’s been a strong Christian for years now so I often found enjoyment and peace whenever I’d talk to him. He was the first person who I felt I could really open up to in regards to my own faith...So in late January of 2017, I was starting to grow in all aspects of my life. As mentioned, I began going to church again, just started my second semester of school which I was enjoying, and a few months prior to that I even inquired about a faith group on-campus (although it wasn’t really the sort of thing that I was looking for since the first topic they asked us was: Can Faith and Fashion Coexist?...Short answer: Yes it absolutely can. Next question please and thank you). The bottom line is that I had been calling out to God and He was drawing nearer to me, answering my prayers and leading the way...But still I didn’t know how to truly become saved.
*Now just as a side note, after years of reading the Bible, I had actually come across some verses about being saved like the ones below:
...but unfortunately, I have also struggled with doubt and uncertainty for years and so although for as long as I can remember I did believe in Christ and that God sent Him down from heaven to die on the cross for us, I didn’t understand that this was in essence all that needed to be done to receive everlasting life…
About a month or so into my second semester at school, I started noticing how there was a disconnect between me and what felt like every other person I had classes with. Yes I had friends but my one friend who I was close with at the time thought it was funny that I was Christian and that I wasn’t interested in partying or doing things that were typical for people my age. This was a fairly common occurrence. After class most days I would go to work on my projects in any available sewing room and find a plethora of other kids in my major with the same idea. There weren’t too many familiar faces being that I was only exposed to a fraction of everyone in my major, but for the most part I socialized with whoever was in the room and would soon find out that many of them were in the same semester as me.
I’m not sure what had finally sparked within me (I assume it was purely the work of the Holy Spirit) but I, the outsider, began to observe others in my major and noticed a common thread among them: that all of my friends and peers would be severely struggling to function outside of (and during) class. Which was weird because by this time I was commuting an hour into and out of NYC and had a job in retail--and I was doing just fine. They couldn’t handle the workload that was given to us because they procrastinated (as most creatives tend to do) or prioritized partying over schoolwork, and it usually resulted in severe anxiety attacks, depression, and many of them relied on some addictive stimulant to get them from one moment to the next. I’ll never forget a day that I spent working in a draping room with a few acquaintances who had been talking to someone that I didn’t know but was apparently in my semester. Everyone was huddled around, admiring their work as this person (who I will not name) decided to make a garment with beautifully delicate, handcrafted buttons. When I took a step closer to see for myself what exactly the big deal was, I noticed that these buttons were beautifully made, but were not meant to look like buttons at all. In fact, they were made to look like prescription drugs. I guess something deep within me stirred up because it had finally dawned on me that these people all looked to earthly, corrupt outlets like drugs and parties to bring them joy and stability. When in reality, this was giving them anything but that.
Did you know that while I was studying in school, I had never once pulled an “all-nighter” (going an entire night without sleep in an effort to finish a project due the next day)? People are usually blown away by me saying that--especially my friends that I met at school. I never needed to rely on anything other than God’s grace and direction for my life to get me from one day to the next. It wasn’t always easy, but still I came out on the other side, degree in hand and now developing this very business…
...I want to assume it was sometime that week (or around the time of the pill-popper number) that I finally felt compelled to express my thoughts and feelings with someone. In February of 2017, I remember having a long conversation with my uncle about school, my family, and as always, our faith. Feeling the tears and anxiety build up inside me, we got onto the topic of salvation. And although I do not remember in detail what I had asked him, I remember finally -finally- admitting to him that I did not know how to truly become saved. I had reached the breaking point. And I may have mentioned that I believed in God and that He sent His only Begotten Son down to die on the cross for our sins, but ultimately my uncle gave me this verse:
Romans 10:9-10 “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
I told him that I absolutely believe in the Lord Jesus and that God raised Him from the dead. I have been believing this in my heart for years by that time, but I didn’t know what to do beyond simply believing. So much that I had witnessed completely turned me over to the Lord and I felt as though I were at His feet, giving all of my worries to Him. Immediately after digesting that verse, I just started sobbing, so overcome with emotion. I felt all of the anxiety and uneasiness that I’ve carried around with me for probably over a decade finally fall off of my shoulders. My uncle was ecstatic, saying that he would be praying for me and probably would cry tonight himself as he spent time with the Lord.
When I ended the call with him several minutes later, I tried to compose myself and walked from my bedroom to the bathroom across the hall to grab a tissue (or the whole box full). My mom, looking at me in the disheveled yet undone and new state that I was in, asked what in the world I was talking about with my uncle (who had a track record for initiating deeply emotional conversations with me). All I said was that we talked about our faith, but in reality, it was in those moments that I finally became saved. Finally, God had answered my question.
To Be Continued...