I have blogged about modesty before and will probably do so again. Modesty is very important to me. And yet few people would look at me on the street and immediately have it pop into their mind "Oh my, she dresses modest". If we make a feature of our modesty that atracts attention, can we call it modesty? Or does it become a way to show the world 'how holy' we are?
Many people cringe when they hear the word modesty because it is often associated with unatractiveness. And as daughters of the King, we are certainly not called to unatractiveness. He created us as women and wants us to celebrate that beauty, to adorn our temples, just not in a way that they incite lust in others. There often is confusion about the word "atractiveness" Should we dress atractive? My answer is a resounding yes.
In Corintians, it is said that our body is a temple, belonging to God.
1 Corinthians 6:18-20 (New International Version)
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
And in 1 Kings 6, we find a description of how the temple looked. It is clear that it's not a matter of putting up whatever as long as the structure is sound. The temple is build lined with carved cedar wood, the door to the sanctuary is carved and overlayed with gold, even the courtyard is made with dressed stone and trimmed cedar wood. Everything is done to make the temple of the Lord a work that delights the senses.
We too are to be a delight to behold, which means that "well, it's modest" is no reason for a potato sack of a dress or an oversized sweatshirt. That does not mean that we should frivolously spend hours and hours before the mirror or that we have to spend money that we do not have on designer clothes. Those are rarely modest anyhow. It means that in our appearance as well as in our demeanour, we need to represent the King.
((to be continued))
4 comments:
What a beautiful photo - I see the apple hasn't fallen far from the tree, Joseph has your looks for sure! I too attempt to dress modestly, one of my teen daughters is very modest, the other one.... well lets just say she tries to get out of the house with some questionable clothing and thinks I'm "mean" when I make her come in and change LOL!!
I do get so many more comments when I wear a dress - or more attention from sales clerks, or more doors opened for me, etc.
Have a beautiful day and enjoy your little one!
Karen
I've been hacking away at my wardrobe recently with "attractive modesty" in mind. It started as removing everything that was inappropriate for my age, because I'm trying to LOOK my age, and then it was "does this really look GOOD on me?" And now it's "can I pull this off with five more pounds ten years from now?" And the trend has been more and more towards modesty, even before I started thinking about that specifically, because more modest clothing is often more attractive.
Great post!
beautiful! more women need to dress modestly, but it seems to be few and far between these days.
Modesty is important, but alas, standards have fallen. I've even seen folks at Mass dressed in less than modest ways.
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