Modesty's the hottest!

Back in my young single days (ya know, 7 months ago) I read the articles on Boundless every week. Overall, their articles don't apply to my life as much anymore, but I highly recommend it for any single Christians out there and I still read their occasional posts about money management and theology. I also like the related blog since it covers a larger variety of topics. One post this week was about modesty and it really caught my attention. I want to talk about it but thought I would address the plank in my eye before moving on to the specks in others.

Before I got married I though I had the modesty thing all under control. As a teenager I didn't really care about what I looked like so I mostly wore loose jeans and baggy t-shirts. It was pretty easy to be modest. In college, I started caring a little bit more about how I looked but I still believed I did a good job about staying appropriately dressed. Then I got married and I thought I was an adult now so I didn't have to worry about that anymore. I wear professional-type clothing at work and at home I wear jeans and tops (but they are cuter than when I was 14, don't worry). But thanks to Craig, I have been finding out that maybe I just wasn't aware of when I was being immodest.

Conversation:
Craig: Do you think you will be comfortable in that?
Me (in a tank top): Yeah, it's like 90, I think I will be fine.
Craig: But I'm not sure if...no, I guess it is okay.
Me (now looking in the mirror): I could change into something with sleeves?
Craig: That might be good

We have actually had 3 or 4 similar conversations in the last couple months. I don't ever remember that happening before we got married, maybe because he couldn't tell what I was wearing over the phone, or maybe because now that my body belongs to him too he is a little more conscious of how much being shown. But I'm glad that he is helping me become more aware.

In general, I don't think the Christian world does a great job of this. There seems to be this great divide when it comes to how Christian girls and women dress. The one side doesn't think about it enough. I have seen girls at church, sitting with their fathers, that could only be described as looking like hoochiemamas. Even some of the amazing Christian women I know still care a bit too much about being "hot" and not beautiful and attractive.

Now that I have given myself the goal of being more conscientious about how I dress, I have been thinking about my friends that do a good job. One was my former roommate, Linsay. I can't remember her ever wearing something inappropriate but she always looked really cute.

That leads me to the other side of the divide. Those that seem to work too hard on being modest and now enough on still being attractive. The nice thing about the program mentioned in the article is that they want these girls to be fashionable too, and they are. The girls in picture are wearing some really cute things. I am still working on getting the cute part down, fashion really isn't my thing, but I think that looking nice is almost as important being modest. Your clothes say a lot about me, and I don't want others to see me, a Christian, as someone who doesn't care what kinda of message she send to the world. And personally, I have no desire to look like I'm 5 years away from being a "jumper mom." It's unnecessary and not always a very good witness. I never want a non-Christian to feel like they might be interested in learning about this Jesus guy, but not if they are going to end up looking like someone from little house on the prairie.

While I may theological issues with the LDS church, I think this is an area were Mormons do pretty well. Which also makes it nice for me living here. Once, I was wearing a little cami around the house but Craig wanted to go run errands so I went and put a t-shirt underneath it. I came out and told Craig that I was ready to go because now I looked like a Mormon . . . I meant it as a good thing. But why can they get a handle on being attractively modest but most Christians can't?



On a non-modesty not - this will be my last post until I finish reading Harry Potter. Like Rachel, I will be distancing myself from any media source that could tell me something I do not wish to know until I read it myself. But don't fret, I won't be gone long.