“I like your dress”

A few months ago when I said that very enthusiastically at work, I immediately heard the Holy Spirit say “Careful with compliments.” Huh? I thought…and then in His usual kind and candid way, he broke it down for me.

The first thing He asked me was “Would you wear that?” Now that was straight from “left field” and a strange question I thought. The reason why I thought that was because I cannot have/wear everything I see and like – for instance there are some outfits that won’t fit my amazing body shape and size but they are nice on others. He then said the reason was some of the “nice” dresses are not-so-nice without a jacket or shrug/bolero. “Oh – I see” I thought to myself…and I fully understood what He meant. In fact, when I saw the person in the dress a later…I got why He gave me that word of caution.

Since that day, I have continued to admire and say “I like your dress” or “Nice outfit” – more carefully now though. I sure don’t want anyone thinking that my compliment was inadvertently my consent for them to be dressed inappropriately. The example of that is when people wear strapless or revealing outfits (dresses/tops etc.) – no matter how it looks on them or how nice the fabric is, I stay away from the “I like your dress” compliment. If I must comment, I’d say “I like the fabric” – the perceptive ladies get my point…  


This is particularly important now that it's summer and some people wear really attractive fabrics but less and less altogether...