And You Know What? The Modesty Gospel will Never win Because it Starts at the Finish Line.

"Give them hope"

He whispered as he gave my shoulder an encouraging squeeze.

"That is definitely a man comment"

I thought as I smiled and nodded, and opened the door and walked to the front to have a conversation with our high school girls about modesty.

"Has he ever walked out of store after store looking for a bathing suit that was cute, covering and not going to cost as much as a car payment?How about finding jeans that fit waist AND thighs? Don't even get me started on this whole jeggins craze... How about a cute summer dress that is long enough to be a dress and not just an over sized shirt?!"

Hope?

"Modesty is a sacrifice- one met with tears and hours of laborious shopping for little profit and a lot of cash."

It was all I could think as I stood and tried to form words about hope and modesty and fit them together.

There's this battle that goes on- the bringing of summer that starts it- about bikinis and skirt length and spaghetti straps and purity and sacrificing and I was alerted standing in line for a veggie Chipotle bowl today that we've officially started that season again.

And my toes curled as I read the arrival that littered my news feed.

In a well thought out blog post her heart to protect our Christian brothers was fierce, and showed on every line,but something in me wanted more said.

"Make a sacrifice, wear a swim suit that covers, you're like chocolate cake that your Christian brother can't resist so cover up!"

And I know I read her words through the modesty gospel but I couldn't help think "Where is the hope in that?" I couldn't find it as I scanned the pixilated words again- it didn't show up.

Again I was left feeling discouraged and with out hope for a summer spent working through the war.

Then Jesus reminded me- he reminded me about the hope he had taught last summer on a hot sticky June night.

"Give them hope"

Those words tossed in my head again and again as I stood to converse with high school girls about modesty.

Hope?

I opened to words I had listened to just Wednesdays before.

Don't skip or skim this part soak in each word... each soul food bite.

"to the elect exiles...chosen and foreknown by God...consecrated (sanctified, made holy) by the Spirit ...obedient to (the Messiah)...grace (spiritual blessing)...peace...in increasing abundance...His boundless mercy...we born again to an ever-living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead...into an inheritance which is beyond the reach of change and decay.. though now for a little while you may be distressed by trials and suffer temptations (Why) So that [the genuineness] of your faith may be tested, [your faith] more precious than the perishable gold. (What's the result of all of this?)Without having seen Him, you love Him; you believe in Him and exult and thrill with inexpressible and glorious (triumphant, heavenly) joy." 1 Peter 1:1-8

Honestly, the warring going on inside of me every summer has more to do with hope than with a hem line.

The battling that happens standing in front of the mirror has more to do with how secure I believe my standing to be.

The anger and frustration and fits that happen when I finally venture out for new summer apparel have everything to do with where I find approval, where I'm found approved.

See here's the thing about modesty at the heart of it, it's about a heart that hopes in gospel- in redemption and restoration, affection and attention.

Modesty is a war but I think we've been loosing this battle because we've decided to make it about bikinis and beaches and the irrisitability of chocolate cake.

This modesty thing is about hope because when my hope- as a woman- is in the fact that my universe creating, God made man, husband chose me ( in the original it's actually "hand picked out") my hem line is going to reflect that.

When the elect choose a bathing suit it will be one suited for the battle. See I'll value the purity Jesus has won for my brother and I'll suit up in a way that wars with my Christian man friends not for him.

When I'm honest that my gospel was attracting and capturing the attention and affection of a man, of people, and that, that kind of gospel can't compare with the real gospel that God freed my captured heart and daily attracts me with attention and affection I could never have won, it changes the wearing and shopping and dressing and thinking and walking I do.

See this is the thing when I hope in the fact that I am secure and safe because he has clothed me with his righteousness and holiness then I have this freedom to loose attention and affection I tried, and still at times try, so desperately to win.

When I get up in the morning and realize that He has given me the oil of gladness, a garment of praising instead of mourning, a shining crown instead of ashes, his glory in place of despair this getting dressed thing becomes less about impressing people and more about gospel informing people.

See this modesty gospel I preached to myself summer after summer, it wasn't bad. I've got four brothers and I cringe and beg God for their purity, their self control, at times a super natural, momentary blindness. But this modesty gospel it starts in the dressing room instead of how Jesus has redressed me. It starts with a hem line instead of declaring holiness won and now being won and worth warring over. It started with self righteousness and the desperation for self respect.

And you know what? The modesty gospel never really wins, because it starts at the finish line and misses the race.

But Jesus' gospel frees from paralyzing fear of getting this getting dressed thing wrong, it gives humility to learn that my favorite cut off jean shorts aren't appropriate any more, it's a freedom to trust that affection and attention won for me, untouched and unseen, satisfies.

God he's done this thing with woman. He's made her beautiful and in his image- for reflecting his image. And, oh honey let me tell you, resting in this, preaching this to self, it begins to cover insecurities that clothes tried to distract from, it births and breeds a new kind if modesty that reflects the unchanging, unmoving groom who for some mysterious reason has chosen to wed himself to a bride that needed his death to live. That needs his constant affection and attention to love.That needs reminder after reminder about this whole perfecting restoration he is working. He talks to dad about us constantly, just exactly what we need to be said, he lived, died, obeyed for our good and allows us to make a big deal about him. He redeems us from other disgusting, lesser lovers we cling to and settle for.

And when this God, in flesh, says not to war for beauty and attention and affirmation that's physical and external but to put on a beauty he's working that starts on the inside and practically takes the form of a spirit that isn't at war for what the world offers, that covers skin as an outworking of the internal security that isn't at war for what a man offers. I think even here he's offering hope.

After all what's hopeful about confident expectation that's won from my appearance that daily is loosing its beauty and charm, that fades and changes and lets be honest can't always hold its own when compared.

I'm not advocating or admonishing bikinis or beaches or bare legs or covered shoulders I'm just saying let's give up the modesty gospel that starts outside of us and let's pick up, preach, put on the Jesus gospel that changes hearts and secures eternities and is strong enough to war the wearing of culture approved, self indulgent dress.

And lastly can I say I hate the chocolate cake illustration. To tell our girls and woman that they are chocolate cake that men can't help but devour when forced to look at for an extended period of time is to say that the spirit of God that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is more powerful than death but not lust. False. False my bold, caring, blogging sister. He is strong enough to over come ignorant exposure, insecure immodesty and full on malicious sexual aggression.He is full of hope for maintaining the holiness gifted to every man wearing the war ready armor of the warrior who fought and conquered death, demons, disease and ever dominion claimed by demonic and evil power. He is hope for humble and transparent conversations and confessions in a sex saturated culture and commercials and conversations and church pews and iphones . Some dying might need to happen, actually it does need to happen, for purity to live but do not hand Christian men a cop out in the form of trying to illustrate how powerful the pull of lust is and visually wired men are. Please, as a sister to men, encourage with the redemption and restoration that is being worked for them and in them by the one who has conquered even this deeply ingrained pull.

See God he has given man masculinity- the call to take responsibility and woman the dignity of modesty and hope to live up to and when we fall short of these two- responsibility and dignity.

By telling women men have responsibility it doesn't negate dignity and by encouraging dignity it doesn't take away responsibility. Jesus gave and maintains both of these.

Hope sisters, hope in the one who has commanded you to clothe yourself in love and love your Christian brother by what you consciously, carefully clothe yourself in this summer. Both physically and the gospel that you intentionally clothe your mind with daily.

Because Loving is Hard and Living is Scary

This is her, a middle of the kitchen, let's talk here and now about real life, kind of girl.

She asks about the momma. The momma missing her little girl. The little girl with a tender heart that no longer beats because day after day the students at her Christian school they used their words to beat and break her. Until she stopped her own breath and stilled her own tenderness.

And I look at real-life girl and I ask her-because she knows what it's like to have a sister that no longer sucks oxygen and beats rhythmically- I ask her how she keeps on loving.... How she keeps on with a tender heart.

And she thinks and looks to a place and time I can not see and she tells me about the brokenness that marked their home after her sisters body was marked by cancer.

She tells me how she watched a frame be destroyed day after day by chemo- the wrecking of a person. She told me how this wrecked her own momma. She tells me how a brother stepped in for a mother and stepped out of high school experiences and now has stepped out of the church.

She tells me how it's hard and there was breaking and how there still is.

She tells me there's a new normal, a new confidence in what Jesus is doing-has done.

A hope he has given for seeing her again and knowing she doesn't hurt or break any more but only knows things we long to get to. She tells me her sister has scouted out heaven and knows the "sweet spots" but best of all her sisters sits face to face with her healer.

And the tenderness is evident in her by the way she serves and listens and encourages and I am still amazed.

Sitting here now the words from Ephesians 4 remind me of her

"be kind to one another, tender hearted"

And I read it and I watch those words and they are words that limp across the page, as helpful and rich as a beggar on the street. They are not bold and soul stirring or quiet and insightful. They are lifeless.

But I pray them for the one, the one who told me her heart has been broken and now she puts on her brave face but she has told me there is only bitterness behind it.

He didn't mean to but he told her with out words that she wasn't worth the fight. And now she fights to appear whole and together when he's taken pieces of her with him.

I pray for kindness and a tender heart where callouses have begun to toughen her. Where insecurity has begun to claim her.

And my nice packaged prayer is interrupted by my wildly beating heart

"How Daddy?! How do you expect us to live here where cancer takes Jesus-loving sisters and words beat a beautiful girl breathless. And young sisters lie awake afraid night after night, afraid to live in case they too catch death. And brothers work hard but work to no end because no light is in their soul and only you can turn soul lights on but for so long it's been dark in there and he blames you because where were you when his sister's eyes want dark. And a girl too young grapples with pieces of brokenness trying to hold pieces together, tries to believe promises when promises have been bold faced broken?"

And I pray in faith knowing he knows how to do it. But me, I am at a loss.

A complete loss.

How do we do it?

How do we live open hands, open hearts when hearts stop beating and break and bruise and fall apart and are scarred ugly.

What do I say to the fear that tells me, that shows me closed hands, closed heart are safer.

Tenderness alone leads to timidness that cause palms to stay dark and hearts to die.

And Piper he says

"It seems to me that we are always falling off the horse on one side or the other in this matter of being tough and tender, durable and delightful, courageous and compassionate -- wimping out on truth when we ought to be lionhearted, or wrangling when we ought to be weeping….Some readers need a good kick in the pants to be more courageous and others confuse courage with what William Cowper called 'a furious and abusive zeal.' Oh, how rare are the Christians who speak with a tender heart and have a theological backbone of steel."

Tenderness is tough and tenacious. 

Tenderness is the God of the whole universe sitting inside his creations womb for 9 months, being knit together.Born with tiny hands and toes and a stomach that hungered and eyes that grew tired with sleep and choosing to sleep the sleep of death so that we could awake. 

Tenderness is the one who commands goats to give birth and decided the depth of the ocean and causes waves and undercurrents and comprehends the expanse of the earth filling us with his fullness. 

Tenderness is the one who has been inside of the store house of snow and causes heaven to give birth to ice and the ground to bear frost then chose to causes the ox to spend the night at his manger and the lamb to bleat at his birth. 

The one who created words, who is the word chose to use none when standing before his creation mocking and scorning him so those re-created could stand at the throne of grace boldly worshiping and petitioning him. 

Think of it! 

He hung on the tree his mind had crafted and power caused to grow, his deity wrapped in humanity stayed there. 

Tenderness for us his enemy, his false accuser. 

He was so tenacious for his own glory for our redemption that the creator of gravity subjected himself to the grounding weight of humanity. 

Rejected by his Father for our acceptance. 

Humiliated by man for his elevation. 

Sub coming to death so that his dead bride could come alive and wed his resurrected body. 

He satisfied the judge so we could share his inheritance. 

Imagine it. 

Tenderness.

It is strength to live to die. 

It is hope, confident expectation of what is coming, when life hurts deep. 

Tenderness is a life scarred and bruised but rehearsing still the life of the one who came to kill and bury death. 

Tenderness is a bride dressed in white waiting, wide eyed, watching for her groom to come even when others act like he won't. 

Tenderness is believing he fulfills promises when life has shown promises break and bend and leave. 

Tenderness is life lived on the victory rock- the place the Israelite battle winners would stand to see the hard fought and won victory. 

Tenderness is believing, remembering, rehearsing the promises kept and on their way when life shows us tight hands and tough hearts are the only way to survive. 

Remember the Generosity

I look down from Dr. Suess at little blonde bitty, sleeping rhythmically, hand tucked into mine, and I think of all the things she misses when her hands are this small.

I tuck a silky strand behind her ear and think of the things she will miss hearing when her ears are so little.

You and I, we talk about this.

It's a different kind of talk.

It's honest and tearful, but not desperate and hurried.

Because I heard a story about you.

A story about a neighbor.

A neighbor giving bread.

After persistence you gave three loaves.

Why three...

He was only one man...

He only had one visitor....

And I feel like the neighbor man on the outside of the house.

No bread, only a visitor.

And I'm knocking waiting for my loaves.

And the door it's opened and you hand the neighbor three pieces of bread.

And I watch the story unfold, black ink to white paper tell.

One loaf for the visitor.

One loaf for the man.

One loaf to offer the visitor to show the generosity of the community.

This three loaf story, it's changed the way you and I talk.

It's changed the way I stand and knock.

Impatience that someone else will have my loaf and I will go with out? Impossible with a three loaf God.

Inclination to hoard? Not necessary with a three loaf God.

Anxiety for the woman laying in St. Francis, the woman with two ginger, sprinkled faced boys. No. Not with a three loaf God.

Fearfulness for what kind of bread I will get... Or not get? No. Not with a three loaf God.

Discouragement from lack of bread on the first and second or fifteenth knock? Not when I know generosity is coming.

Worry for this sleeping blonde bitty with no daddy? Why, when our daddy is a three loaf papa?

And you, three loaf God, you precious Jesus you are not only the neighbor who gives to reflect generosity you are the visitor who sits at the table and eats with me. You are the bread that sustains me.

Our talking, it's starting to reflect this three loaf reality.

And slipping blonde bitty into her pink sheets. I ask for bread for me and for her and know there will still be left overs for generosities sake because you are a three loaf God.