The following is a shorter version of what I will post on the main site. My new readers are probably curious to know how I came to this point of launching a site like this.
Since around seven or eight years old, I have had a deep fascination with all things historical. I started reading Little Women and Laura Ingalls Wilder works at this time. We lived in Ohio, which is home to the largest population of the traditional orders of Amish believers. My suburban childhood was one of fantasy, filled with horses, gardens, barns, long dresses, and bonnets.
My family was strongly Christian, though of the Charismatic/non-denominational variety. No one practiced headcovering or overtly modest dressing. My ways were odd and I hid them, for the most part, from my friends.
In my mid-teen years, I left a private Christian school for homeschooling, which freed me to read pretty much what I wanted. I was drawn to the works of Gene Logdson, Wendell Berry, and eventually of the conservative Quaker magazine [now defunct] Plain. My ambition was to have a farm, a hobbit hole, if you will. The favored outfit, was an Amish dress and a bonnet. Our family moved from Ohio to Phoenix, Arizona which pulled me out of dreamland and into a new reality.
Urban life has a way of drawing a person from youthful ideals into the rush-rush of materialism. After I completed homeschool, I enrolled in community college. For the next 5 years, I wandered in and out of school and in and out of church. My husband calls it “checking out your brain” or just plain old rebellion.
I moved from Arizona to the Washington, D.C. area to work as a nanny. The childhood dreams never left me completely. Around this time (2000), I discovered websites of ladies who were choosing to dress the new (old) ways of dressing and living. My heart ached as I read their stories, thinking I could never have their happiness.
I became entangled in a very unhealthy relationship with a military officer for two years. Ultimately, I broke off the engagement when the Holy Spirit convicted me of the sin and abuse in which I was living. By this time, my parents had moved to Virginia and I moved back in with them, just like the prodigal child.
I reapplied to colleges and chose to attend Hollins University, which is a private all-women’s school, in the Liberal Arts tradition. Even though the atmosphere was not Christian, and sometimes anti-faith, God used it to heal the insecurities I had accumulated. Instead of discouraging me from my faith, the academic world confirmed my worldview. Perhaps being older and streetwise helped me, too.
I put my dreams of a happy Christian home and husband on the backburner. After all, I was “damaged goods”, right? Well, God didn’t think so. Half way through my time at Hollins, He brought Jeff into my life. We met through Yahoo and chatted politely as friends for a while. He lived(es) in Oklahoma, so I didn’t give our growing friendship much thought.
One evening, as we were chatting, it seemed like the Spirit gave me an elbow and said, “Pay attention to this young man!” I sat straight up in my seat after Jeff mentioned something about liking the idea of homeschooling. Hmmm…maybe?
I’ll save our courtship story for another time because I promised this would be short. We met in person, Jeff met my family, I met some of his, He proposed during my last semester, I graduated, I moved to Oklahoma and we were married in July, 2006.
Jeff is strongly supportive of my choice to dress modestly and cover my hair(one of the reasons I married him!) I began wearing skirts and dresses almost entirely after I moved to Oklahoma. (Goodwill is awesome!) My conviction to cover was to wait until I was married. As of this writing, I cover on Sundays and at home for prayer. My goal is to sew cape dresses to wear, in plain fashion. My covering is a cap-style I designed myself, in an opaque cream fabric. [I'll get pictures up as soon as I can, our camera doesn't work very well.]
I hope this inspires you all to write in your testimonies. You can be as short or as long as you’d like. Feel free to ask me questions.
