Special Earrings

Lately, I picked up some old earrings and began wearing them regularly. There is a sweet story that makes these earrings special.

For ten years, when we were a young family, Les and were in a VERY strict, conservative, legalistic church. I often refer to this as our cult years. Maybe it was  a cult, maybe not, but we found ourselves under a great deal of pressure to conform to certain standards.

In this group, the women dressed in an ultra conservative manner. We only wore dresses or skirts, wore no make-up and no jewelry, except simple wedding rings. Even using products like skin cream seemed a worldly thing to do. The worst part of this environment was the extreme focus on the church. At a time when we should have been learning to love each other and nurturing our children, all of our energy went into serving this church.

One day, right in the middle of our years with this group, my husband Les walked in with a gift for me. (We did not celebrate Christmas or birthdays for adults, so receiving any kind of gift was very unusual.)  When I opened the small box, I was shocked to see a pair of diamond post earrings. This was shocking to me for several reasons. First, I did not wear jewelry. It was against our religious beliefs! I surely did not wear expensive, fancy jewelry. Besides the religious things, there was also the money. We didn’t have any. It took everything we had to raise three children on one income. We barely could pay our mortgage, car payment, and other necessities (which included tithe and offerings).  The diamonds were tiny, but, still, diamond earrings were certainly a very extravagant gift.

Les was so proud of that gift. And I was so proud to wear them. I wore them every day, and with no guilt whatsoever. So what if no one else wore earrings, my husband gave them to me and he wanted me to wear them. A few years later, he bought a pair of hoops that go with the posts. I haven’t worn them much the last few years, because, since we left the superconservitivecultishkindofchurh, he has bought me a lot of other, more flashy earrings.  But, recently, I brought them out and have been enjoying them again.