Womanhood dump #1: Modesty

I have a lot to say.

MODESTY
is a scary word. Sometimes I immediately freeze up when I hear it, images of jean jumpers flashing in my mind.

NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH JEAN JUMPERS. The issue is WHY you're choosing to dress that way. We'll get into that later.
My thoughts on this issue stemmed from a conversation I had with a good friend. We were getting changed for a play, and she was discussing how much trouble she was having with her shirt. "What's wrong?" I asked.
"Well, it's so low. It keeps slipping down."
She leaned over to demonstrate. I thought it was fine, and said so.
"Oh, no," she said, eyes widening, "if you look down standing up and see the crack, it's immodest."

My point with this little anecdote is NOT to demean personal modesty rules. I think they're great, and if you have some that you believe are right for you, stick to 'em. But that's just it -- they're personal. And that's why there's so much controversy over the modesty issue. What's modest? Immodest? Where's the line between them? It's different for every girl -- and there are rarely universal rules. If I had a bigger chest, I'd have to be extra careful about what kind of shirts I choose to wear. If I have a really long torso, maybe I'd buy extra-long tees. That sort of thing. And whether or not you see a crack does not automatically make it immodest. And wearing a jean jumper does not make you modest. I hope you get that.

Back to the "rules." I'll quote God here. Jesus came to earth. Turns out the people who annoyed him the most were Pharisees: leaders who cared more about looking holy and following rules than loving God. In Matthew, Jesus spends almost a whole chapter yelling at them.

23"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

25"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

27"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. 28In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

Ouch. I can already say that some of what I try to do just turns me into a whitewashed tomb: trying to change stuff on the outside to make myself better on the inside. Jesus says it's the other way around.
So, cracks aside, our modesty will stem from changing our insides, by chasing after God and listening to Him. Paul urges believers to WEAR Jesus!

Romans 13:14 Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

Your (and my) question: "Okay, if my modesty's stemming from my insides, what is the right kind of modesty that's supposed to stem??"

Well, welcome to SubjectiveLand. This is where you and I end up, looking for advice, if we're trying oh-so-hard not to be gratifying our sinful nature.
This is a vague and confusing land to be in. But this is where you can start connecting your heart, glorifying God, and your outward appearance to each other.
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
That means looking at yourself in the mirror and asking, is this Christian of me today?
It means asking your brother how you look before going somewhere! (Or scarier, your dad!)
It means knowing that you're not going to distract people from your inner loveliness and outward beauty by wearing clothes that take away from those two special things.

A very wise man named Chad Eastham that I had heard at a girly conference once asked us all in the audience a question.
"Are you a treasure or a target?"
Not, "are you dressing slutty or not?" Modesty is so much more than clothes! He asked us if, by the way we dressed, talked, and behaved, we were modest.
Were we being kind to our friends, including guy friends? Were we building them up?
Were we flirty?
Were we acting needy? Were we dependent on guy's approval?
Were we dressing in a way that said, "I'm an easy target?"

God says we're treasures. God loves us so ridiculously much that He died for us. And He chose us especially to live with Him forever. And He wants us to shine that through all the things we do! Our bodies are temples, because the Holy Spirit is inside us.
The conclusion I reached is, I want to dress respectfully because of that.

OTHER SIDE OF THE MODESTY DISCUSSION
"Men are disgusting!"
"They're animals!"
"You know they only want one thing when they look at a woman..."

Hearing this stuff breaks my heart. It hurts that women live in fear of men because of the sexual nature God gave them. (Side note: we have it too. And just because they manifest themselves differently does not make women holy, or men disgusting. Sheesh.)
Modesty can be used as a form of worship -- clothing yourself like a temple housing something precious, God's spirit within you. But it can also be a tool of fear -- being modest because you are scared of men and how they might look at you.

As Christian women, our reason for modesty shouldn't be out of fear. We should want to be modest because we love our brothers, in the same way that we are modest because we love God, and we respect our parents' wishes about how to dress because we love them!
It's mean to be hot, most of the time. Chances are, if your guy friends are trying to follow God, they are already having enough issues as it is. Satan teamed up with the twenty-first century, and he does not make it easy for them. Once upon a time, they had to worry about maybe seeing a girl's ankle. Nowadays, they have to carry around spiritual machine guns and grenades to battle all the stuff that comes at them 24/7. (Guys out there: keep it up, we're rooting for you.)
So be kind. Cover yourself accordingly. They'll probably appreciate it.

YET ANOTHER SIDE OF MODESTY

So you're modest. Or are you?
Modesty is special, powerful, and born out of something inside of you.
That thing could be fear. It could be love. It's better when it's love, by the way. I think I already said that.

What else is in there, nestling inside you? Are you tomboyish, and you don't want to be "cute?" Or are you self-deprecating (you hate yourself), and you think you're "fat" so you wear baggy, big clothes to hide in. Or you wear jean jumpers so that you will appear righteous and holy? The list goes on.

Since there's a lot of reasons, I'm not going to talk about those. I urge you to look at your insides, and see where your modesty, or lack thereof, is stemming from. After all:

The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.

Anyway, I've been careful not to state too many things as gospel truth. There is always, my friends, a chance that I am completely out of line. Please agree and disagree accordingly.

Next up: Femininity.