Story Time: Basketball & A Broken Necklace

The fun things about this outfit: 

Pants - Thrifted & Skinnied, Shoes - Target sale, Shirt - HandMeDown, Necklace - Made by Me

So when I was in high school I used to wear my moms old jewelry. I thought it was the coolest thing when I wore something "SO OLD" and I always was drawn to this large beaded necklace with short 4-5 strands. It was beautiful. But I could never get the courage to wear something so attention grabbing. I was a total sports girl, and never really dressed up unless my team decided it would be a fun idea...which hardly appealed to me.

One day I finally mustered up the gusto to just do it. I clasped that necklace on my neck like I had just put on the crown jewels. I walked into school with my head high and feeling proud. Well, it didn't take long after the final bell that let the prisoners free from 7th period, for me to find my way to the gym. I had a practice in an hour that day and not a ton of homework, so to pass the time... why not shoot some hoops right?

Wrong.

With my first jump to steal the ball from the enemy (aka the friend I was playing with), the crown jewels burst from my neck and scattered across the gym floor. To make matters worse, I was right next to the bleachers and as you probably can assume, beads rolled their little selves right under that never ending black cave. I rushed to find a paper cup and started to fill it with any beads I could find. All I could hear was the echo of my mom's voice as if it was coming from the sky itself, "Do. Not. Break. This."

Well...It took me a few weeks before the courage was gained to tell my mom about the explosion of her necklace. The amount of courage needed was far surpassing the amount needed to wear the thing in the first place. Thank goodness my mom loved me more than that lovely necklace. 

And so my creativity started in the world of jewelry. 

I did what I could to create something new from the beads I had crawled 

on all fours to collect. And, yes, it's the one I'm wearing in this outfit. 

Funny how inspiration starts.

Ephesians 4:20-24

But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt throughdeceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.