Rethinking Modesty

Hello all! It's been a minute since I've written any posts on this blog. College is wonderful and fulfilling but also extremely time-consuming, and I've also been trying to cut back on screen time some lately-- especially now that I'm able to live on campus at my school. However, this post idea has been nagging me at the back of my mind for a while, so I finally decided to write it.

Of late, I've been growing more and more aware of how dysfunctional my relationship with my own body is. This can manifest itself in the areas of food, exercise, general self-care, and the way I perceive my appearance. While I've known I didn't always think of or treat my body in the healthiest way for quite a while, it's only recently that I've started chipping away at the underlying cause of it. Sadly enough, I think the way that I've thought about modesty has played a major role in this struggle.

I certainly believe that modesty in dress is something God cares about, and therefore, something Christians should be concerned about in their lives. Passages such as 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, 2 Timothy 2:8-10, and 1 Peter 3:3-4 make this very clear. However, I think we need to be very careful how we talk about modesty and the reasoning we give for it.

At the most basic, practical level, young girls are taught that modesty means to not wear revealing clothes. But I think this is where the problem lies. What is the opposite of "revealing?" Concealing. And the vast majority of the time, we conceal things because they are bad. We avoid speaking of shameful secrets, we lock ugly messes away where they can't be seen. Somewhere in the back of my mind, this is how I began to think of modesty. Because I knew it was important for me to cover my body, I began to think of my body as something bad and ugly. Why else would I hide it? My modesty was not motivated by a desire to please God, nor was it an effort to avoid leading other people into sin. It was strictly a personal coping mechanism... I did not want anyone else to see the body I couldn't bear to look at.

I did everything right. I made sure that my shorts went past my mid-thigh-- but it was because I didn't want anyone to see the stretch marks that I'd developed when I gained weight in my late teens. I would never have considered wearing a crop top-- but it was because I was so ashamed of my stomach that didn't look like the ripped models on women's fitness magazine covers. I kept myself covered, not because I thought someone might be sinfully attracted to me, but because I assumed everyone would be rightfully repulsed. My "modesty" was motivated by fear and shame, and fear and shame are not honoring to God.

Again, the problem arose from my assumption that whatever must be concealed is inherently bad. What I failed to recognize was that sometimes, there is a different reason for concealment. Sometimes, we hide things because they are so beautiful and so special that we don't want just anyone to see them. A thing that must be concealed does not have to be a shameful secret; sometimes it is a priceless gift.

This is how I'm trying to learn to view my body: as a precious gift from God, a gift that is mine and mine alone. If the Lord provides me with a husband one day, I will share this gift with him, but it is for no one else. It is God's temple, and I want to steward it, care for it, and cherish it-- to conceal it as something sacred is concealed.