the modesty gospel never really wins, because it starts at the finish line and misses the race

He crossed his arms and stretched out his legs before smirking and winking. 

He knew he had me. He knew I was irritated. 

But what are you going to do when you're in a circle of five chairs and four people. 

"So if a girls wearing something inappropriate can i call her out on it?"

I shook my head like I could shake some common sense into our conversation. Instead I tried to form words that were calm and collected and didn't give any hint of how much I just wanted to boisterously tell him that this conversation was over. 

I shook my head no and shrugged my shoulders and told him

"No, no you can't." 

He wasn't put off. 

"Why can't I?" 

I wasn't put off either but my mind was running a hundred miles an hour. My law-oriented heart tugged back to the days when there were rules for how to dress. When clothes were long and loose fitting and there was a definite line but no one really could explain where the line was they could just tell you when you had lept over it in you skimpy, tempting, man-hating, pagan attire (usually the line was between semi cute and up-to-date attractive.)

Looking at him all I wanted to say was 

"Why?! Why?! Because to have that conversation with a girl you're going to need to get her a ring and a mortgage and even at that point you might not want to talk to her until you can add giving her hope." 

That's when I realized, it wasn't that his fundie roots were showing, it wasn't that my heart was being drawn back to the years spent in fear of the wrong kind of attention or shame when someone called you out for the pocket on the back of your knee length running shorts, it wasn't that I was equating modesty with ugly, these weren't the things bothering me about this conversation. 

What bothered me was that there was no hope in his question, no hope in my response (both were well sarcasm saturated, but that's probably another issue.)   

That's when I remembered summers ago the encouraging squeeze a salt and pepper haired man had given my shoulder when he looked at me and told me 

“Give them hope" 

All I could think then was 

"That is definitely a man comment" 

But 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? Or what about a cute summer dress that is long enough to be a dress and not just an over sized shirt?! And don't even get me started about the fact that there are places trying to sell me pants with no zipper… pants without zippers aren't pants their tights or leggings… or pajamas.”

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.

"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 losing this battle because we've decided to make it about bikinis and beaches and the irresistibility 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 losing its beauty and charm, that fades and changes and let’s 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 overcome 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 in the form 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. 

the one thing every life needs to know

Sitting across from her on my back deck in weather too hot and sticky to be May I remembered that night.

Holding the phone close to my ear I sat down and bent over, trying to sound normal while the room spun.

Two babies in one week. Two babies buried deep. Two babies sitting in the belly of the earth. Then there was this one black haired beautiful baby whimpered on the other end of the baby monitor.

And I told the one on the other end of the phone I had to go. And I stood and buried my arms in soapy water at the sink. And I wondered why the Mommas who had beautiful nurseries ready and hearts full of wanting and waiting and  the willingness to parent now had no baby and this beautiful raven eyed baby girl lay in a bed away from parents who didn't want her. Parents who had abused and neglected her.

Sitting on the back deck, I drug my toe across a crack in one of the boards. It had been weeks since I had held that beautiful foster baby but sitting across from real-life girl it reminded me of that suffocating feeling.

This Jesus loving, real-life girl talked about a brother who lost his only oldest sister and ran from the sovereignty of God that allowed death and how in only one year at one camp he met Jesus and two years later he put a hole the size of his fist in the bathroom wall because his man friend drove off the road at 17 and never woke up. And he had decided to follow this Death-allower so what was he going to do but put a hole in the wall.

And I felt like someone had stolen my air and my heart cried for loss that has taken years to process. And listening to her monotone voice tell about loss that is deep and close and scary.

I'm reminded that there's a girl in the house behind me fighting for life and the ability to live after death has come to her family.

And I'm terrified of the evil that comes without warning and is too strong to be detoured. And I ask Jesus what should I say?! I ask him if he's hearing this story, hearing the stories of loss.

And he takes me back to the night that I bent over a sink of soap and white dishes and colorful plastic cups. Reminds me the stories that connected that night.


That there was this time where Moses walked up on a mountain, the terrifying mountain consumed in God's presence. And Moses he asked bold and brave to see God's glory. So God hid Moses in the rock and passed by. When Moses came out he saw the backside of God's chara- his goodness. He saw the back of God.

Moses had come into the terrifying and all he wanted was to see God and what he got was a left over view of the back of God.

Then the omnipresent became personally present when he came here.

There was this woman who heard he was here and she went to find him.

Life blood coming out of her.

She went to find him and came up behind him, like Moses had been forced to do.

She wanted to see his goodness, experience his goodness. She reaches out and touched the back of the edge of his robe.

Then this thing happened; Jesus. turned. around.

And I'd never seen it, never put it together.

God had to hide Moses, but Jesus turned around.

And I am reminded of Tullian's quote

"In our suffering we do not need an answer we need his presence."

And I agree with Ann

"We do not need an explanation we need an experience." And I would add an experience from an experienced one."

Our suffering begs for his presence.

Our wounding reminds us we need his wounds.

He reminds me he doesn't hold out on giving us anything good because he never holds himself back from us repenters, us followers, us cross-take-upers, us grace-covered.

So what do us use-to-be-enemies do when the expanse of an entire universe feels like it's closing in.

What do we do when the atmosphere of a planet isn't enough room to breath.

When 435,000 miles of sun is not enough light to make the dark places illuminate.

When only daughters watch their single mom die from cancer, when real-life girl sits across and talks about death taking her sister and sickness now wrecking her own body, when brothers carry heavy weights and we realize we are the ones who loaded them up with law and not grace and now they struggle to see God, when the girl behind you whispers low that she knows what hopeless is and how life can seem too much and death can seem so sweet.

We remember this Jesus, he was tried so that our trying could end and in our trials his trial reminds us that there is something weightier than this present moment waiting for us.

His suffering was cause by our sinning But the cross he carried that Good Friday it was his choosing, his entering and it is this entering that gives hope to our living.

Lives under crosses of abandon and adultery and broken promises and broken marriages and debt and divorce and cancer and miscarriages and missed chances.

It is his suffering that comforts the inconsolable and breeds hope where hurt has reigned.

It is his bearing of the wrath that makes it possible to choose the yoke that he has offered to share. A light yoke, a teaching yoke.

It is because he swallowed death that now we can taste and digest all of life, not just the tasty, palatable morsels. But the bitter, tasteless moments too.

Our brokenness is healed by his holiness and the holes that pierced his body to pierce the sin that put holes in us.

And our aloneness it needs to meet with his presence.

And our evil his atonement.

It is because of him that we do not have to exhaust explications but can exist in his presence confidently and comforted because of and by his suffering in our suffering.

And he reminds me; no good thing does he withhold because he never withholds himself.

So laying in bed after that deck talk, I asked him that question I have been asking for at least a month now

"Dad, where were you?"

and he reminds me face. to. face.

what all of us insecure need

Standing at the kitchen sink, elbow deep in suds and greasy water I thought it over and over. The thoughts that she, the lanky blond is more than me. I thought about my immature reaction and how I wanted to do it over again and if I couldn't do it over I wanted to crawl under a rock. Shame. Shame and insecurity fed by the replaying of the past.

I thought that when you grow up you some how grow into your own skin, your own story. You grow out of your own awkwardness, and quirks become endearing. I thought that jealousy is something easily left behind. I thought that maturing means you automatically never measure, never measure your own spirituality against another's. Never measure your appeal or lovability or ability against another's.

Yeah, and there are those people that tell you "just give it to Jesus" And you want to nod and hand them your want to be validated, hand them all the energy spent on proving yourself but all you can do is tell your face not to scrunch too much when you shrug your shoulders and ask "how?"

How do you let potent words pass through your ears without leaving pin pricks that leak insecurity from your mind right into your very heart.

How do you live with humanity as human and let go of the want to be validated and approved of and accepted?

Fear comes in all shapes and sizes I guess, it tells us the palatable lie that God's love ends. Weakens. Becomes board.

Fear calls us to convince the world we are worthy.  Shame whispers softly for us to come and hide behind  man's praise.  Fear  makes me want to be seen but not known. Shame wants  achievements and hurts and angers to be validated but not exposed.

Yeah, and I ask Jesus if he will ever make my identity stick? How long will I walk away from conversations or achievements or terrible reactions and have to repeat ask for  re-affirmation that I was a city forsaken my name was not your people but now my name is His delight is in me.

How long can one persons words rock my world?

Then You sit me down to read and remind me there is more to re-affirm more to re-consider.
The girl in the story- the girl who had "weak eyes" who was nothing to look at. I want to stand and shout when I see what she says. I want to go find her in history and nodding a hard "YES!" to her when she names her babies.Names her babies with names that declare how she thinks her insecurities have been taken care of. And after it's all said and done and Jacob doesn't see her, doesn't love her, doesn't hear her. This sweet Leah, this girl whose going to birth a nation- she holds her last baby boy and she says it "now my heart will praise the LORD."

Me too, Leah. This heart that forgets how safe it is, this heart will praise the Lord too. This heart that longs to  have its thoughts and achievements and words validated  it will repeat Christ's victory.

Sitting alone on my floor I name them out loud; the things to praise God for.

And I do it when I'm pulling apart chicken-God created tiny bones that fit into the perfect frame. So tiny so intricate.

And I do it when I pass lush colors of spring flowers.

And I can't hardly stay in my car seat when the cd repeats that you have given hope and peace and rest.

And I watch in the morning as the sun gets up. Never, never , never let me take for granted that a ball of fire is held in orbit to give light to the day.

I think of how praise worthy You are and I am not fighting to prove my worth.

And I think of Joseph and Esther and how You worked craziness for gospel proclamation.

So this year has been the-year-of-no-fear, but really it is becoming the-year-of-true-fear through worship.