What's Your Life Style?

Instead of joining the maddening crowds at shopping malls or discount stores, I spent the day after Thanksgiving browsing the small businesses in St. Augustine, hoping to discover a charming new boutique. 

This is part of my usual {for the past two decades} Black Friday routine since my family spends the holiday weekend there just a two-hour drive from our Orlando hometown. It seems there's always a gem of a store hiding among the tourist-y stores and this year I found one full of treasures with a generous heart.

Philanthropy, Fashion + Compassion is a mix of vintage-look and rustic decor, clothing, gifts and jewelry, where you can shop, pray and support global causes through your purchases. 

I fell in love the minute I walked the door. Barrels were styled into tabletop displays, chandeliers hung from the ceiling and the tops of armoires were styled with pillows, art and stacks of vintage books. 

Since I love wrap and ribbons and bows, I thought I spotted an entire wall of gift tags, but as I got closer I realized they were little notes hanging under a sign that labeled it the prayer wall. 

The tags were actually prayer requests, handwritten on little cards and hanging on nails, inviting other shoppers to pray for them. 

I read a tag from a student who wanted prayer for a test and a daughter asking prayer for her sick mother.

As I stood before the wall, I wondered if all these vulnerable written expressions reflected a type of stylish beauty on display, giving strangers a peek into graceful hearts. 

Whether it’s a wall, an armoire, a ceiling, or a life, isn’t its look determined by how we design it? 

Sometimes it’s easier to adorn our mantels and our armoires than it is to adorn our lives.

I think offering our souls to God, opening our hearts to compassion, and extending grace to our neighbors might be the fashion for a stylish life. 

I don’t know about you but I have a few problems, circumstances and situations that need a fresh approach, change of perspective or maybe even a complete makeover.

Could that dark corner of critical thoughts {toward others and ourselves} stand to be a cleared out? 

What if we blew the dust off those nooks and crannies of time-wasters that overwhelm our schedules {and our hearts} and gave ourselves space to breathe? 

Could we make over that shelf of staid and stale perspectives that keep us doubting and disillusioned {with God, ourselves and others} and infuse them with a fresh burst of hope?

Styling our lives reveals the heart of who we really are.

The website Chairish, asked me to create a style board if I were to top off one of their vintage armoires. This pretty site brings together buyers and sellers of vintage furniture and decor items, jewelry and accessories.

Even though I was a newbie at creating a style board, I was excited to give it a try with Canva (thanks to Crystal Stine’s online course I took earlier this year). 

I pulled some of my favorites - candles, mirrors and pillows from Anthropologie, and a lantern and wire basket from Chairish. I'd put a mirror {or two} in the center, fill a basket full of colorful pillows, open up a couple of creamy white candles and even put one inside of a vintage French lantern.

My vintage armoire is topped with holiday decorations now but I'll eventually pack them up to pull out my everyday pieces come January. That's when I'm going to be rethinking the style of my house. 

And the style of my life.

{You too?}

Maybe like me, you'll even discover a treasure of a store with a heart to help and a place to connect that's always in fashion.

I'm linking up with my friends at Holley Gerth's place at Coffee for your Heart and the #RaRa link-up at Purposeful Faith. Join me there for more posts from my blogger friends!