I’d like to introduce you to your imaginary Uncle Freddie. You love Uncle Freddie. He’s been single all his life, so you feel almost motherly towards him since he doesn’t have anyone else to look after him. He’s jolly, and open, and sincere, loves kids and animals, never misses birthday parties. You know, he’s family. Unfortunately, Uncle Freddie also has an unhealthy relationship with food. In fact, he weighs 600 pounds, and his doctor has told him that if he doesn’t lose weight, he’s going to die because if the diabetes doesn’t get him, a heart attack will. Uncle Freddie’s coming over for dinner tomorrow, and you’ve got a family pack of chicken. How are you going to cook it?

Recently, Joanna, of Jo-with-it’s Portfolio left me the following comment.

Do you wear skirts all the time? I think I would like to try it for a week or something, but I don’t know if there are any verses that say you should, and I don’t know where to look. I don’t want to do it for the wrong reason.

Yup, I pretty much do wear skirts all the time, but not exactly because I think the Bible says I should. Rather, I think the Bible has certain principles that should affect our clothing choices, and wearing skirts is the easiest way for me to keep them all in balance. I do not think mine is the only way to do this. It’s just the one that makes the most sense to me. The personal outworking of Biblical principle, is exactly that, personal. And above all, we need to follow the leadership of our husbands and fathers in that outworking.

Uncle Freddie will be our constant companion through this discussion because, just as he has an unhealthy relationship with food, there are an awful lot of men out there who have unhealthy relationships with women’s bodies through lust. And the way we prepare food for dinner for an unhealthy loved one has a lot of correspondences to the way we prepare our bodies for a day out in an unhealthy world.

The first Biblical principle that should affect clothing choice is modesty. Modesty is like keeping your cooking low in calories. It’s a slippery issue, hard to make universal rules about, but vitally important, especially when Uncle Freddie is coming to dinner, AND in the case of modesty (not low cal cooking), it’s actually commanded in Scripture.

In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. 1Timothy 2:9-10

The closest I can come to a good working definition of modesty is, “not drawing attention to yourself,” not putting up the big, sizzling, neon sign that screams, “Look at me!” “Look at me, I’m so rich!” or “Look at me, I just walked off the cover of InStyle,” or perhaps most crucially, “Look at me, I’m hotter than hellfire, I got more curves than the Pacific Coast Highway, and you’re gonna be dreaming about me all night, baby!” Maybe the simplest way of saying it is that modesty means not showing off.

And we really need not to show off because our brothers in Christ are living in a sex-saturated world, just like Uncle Freddie is surrounded by fast food restaurants and cheap candy bars. Sexual images are everywhere, easily available, addicting, and anonymous. A 1996 Promise Keepers Survey at one of their rallies found that over 50% of the men admitted being involved with pornography within one week of attendance. And according to a 2001 Christianity Today Leadership Survey 37% of pastors say that porn is a current struggle. It’s been a few years, and I’d be really surprised if the situation hasn’t gotten worse.

Men who are struggling with porn are guaranteed also to be struggling with objectifying the women around them, with viewing women as nothing but bodies, with living each day in a state of unbridled lust. And that lust is killing them spiritually just as surely as being morbidly obese is killing Uncle Freddie physically. Some of these men are completely given over, but others are fighting, struggling to keep their heads above water. And while we may sometimes be able to tell who these hurting men are, the numbers are so high that the majority of them are going unnoticed. You see them at church, at the store; they’re watching you from their cars as they pass you on the street. Do you love these men? Do you want to help them? Do you care if they lust after you? Or are you just annoyed with them? Are you angry at Uncle Freddie for eating way too many Twinkies and then overeating at your table?

The second principle is being feminine, the desire to look like a woman. This is akin to having what you cook taste good. The main verse people usually quote on dressing in a distinctly feminine way is:

The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God. Deuteronomy 22:5

The important thing to keep in mind here is that this is part of the Law, and Christians have argued for centuries about what that means for us. Many people would be quick to point out that this same chapter forbids plowing with an ox and an ass together (v. 10) and wearing fabric made from combined fibers, such as wool and linen (v. 11). Most Christians, even the ones who say that verse 5 means that it’s an abomination for women to ever wear pants, would not rise up in righteous indignation at a poly-cotton blend, so a lot of people would like to throw out the idea that a women wearing masculine clothes is wrong, too. But there is a difference in verse 5. It’s unique in that a reason for the command is given. And that reason is that “all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.” “Abomination” means God hates it. When God says He hates something we’d better take note, no matter which part of the Bible we find His declaration in. Indeed, we take very seriously other “abominations to the LORD” mentioned in the Law (idolatry: Deuteronomy 7:25, human sacrifice: Deuteronomy 12:31, involvement in the occult: Deuteronomy 18:10-12, deceitfulness in business: Deuteronomy 25:13-16, and many, many more). God, who does not change, has declared that He hates it when men look like women and women look like men. Now exactly what that means in terms of the actual clothes is going to be cultural, but I think we can at least take away from this the principle that God does want us to look like what He made us to be.

OK, now comes the hard part, a balancing act tougher than menu planning for a 600 pound uncle, because the easiest way to look feminine is to wear clothes that are small and tight, that show lots of your delicate skin, gracefully follow every curve, and leave no doubts about how small and soft you are compared to the average man. But, oops! That is not terribly modest. Now what? More fabric? Baggier? More androgynous?

It’s really easy to be modest without being feminine, and it’s really easy to be feminine without being modest, just like it’s really easy to cook low calorie chicken that tastes like rubber, and it’s really easy to cook succulent chicken that’s fatty enough to clog seven more of Uncle Freddie’s hardened arteries.

Take jeans for example. Jeans can be kind of modest if they’re really loose and straight cut. Some men, to be perfectly blunt, are going to have trouble with having their eye follow the line of your legs up to where they meet (a place it would be better if the men around you weren’t thinking about), but you could always mitigate that with a really big shirt that hangs half-way to your knees. And if you’re super careful about not letting your hips sway too much, depending on your hair, you might even pass for a wimpy little man, and then for sure, you’d be modest. But, ew, not to mention “abomination.” So maybe we don’t want to go there, but the minute your jeans are tight enough to show the world that you’re actually female, you’re cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway in a convertible. And, um, we all know how men are about…cars.

So, what do we do? I tend to think that modesty has to come first, but not to the absolute exclusion of femininity (because God does want us to look feminine). We constantly have to strike a balance, and that is governed by the most important principle yet, the Principle of Love.

To illustrate what I mean, let’s return to Uncle Freddie for a moment. How are you going to cook that chicken? Look at these menu options and the thoughts behind them, and try to think which one is the most loving.

Well, option one is, you could say to yourself, “It’s Uncle Freddie’s fault he’s so fat. If he overeats at my house and gains six more pounds, he’ll have no one to blame but himself and his own out of control lust for food. I’m getting out the Crisco and frying that chicken because that’s the way my husband likes it. Anyway, if Uncle Freddie doesn’t eat fried chicken at my house, he could always stop at KFC on the way home, so it doesn’t really matter how I cook.”

Or, you could say to yourself, “Poor Uncle Freddie, food is just too hard to resist! Maybe if I boil the chicken in several changes of water, I can remove all the fat. My family’s not going to like it, but I don’t want to feel like I killed Uncle Freddie!”

Then there’s option three: “I love Uncle Freddie, and I know he really struggles with food. I want to make a nice dinner for my family, but I don’t want to sabotage Uncle Freddie’s efforts, either. Maybe I could fire up the grill to give that chicken a nice mesquite flavor without adding extra fat and calories.”In my mind, option three is the most loving. You’re balancing your love for your family with your love for Uncle Freddie and sensitivity to his struggles. You’re trying to make food that will be yummy for your husband and children, but that won’t contribute to Uncle Freddie’s problems. Of course, he could still overeat, but you’re giving him a fighting chance at staying on his diet.

It is this balance that I’m striving to achieve in my clothes. I want to be feminine and pretty, to look like a woman, but I don’t want to show so many curves that the men around me start hearing engines revving and feel the salt air on their cheeks. And for me, that means wearing skirts. Skirts are obviously feminine (just think of the little outlines of the people on the doors of public bathrooms–the canonical woman is wearing a dress). You can tell at a glance that I’m a woman, but (if my skirt is long and full enough), I’m not showing all that many curves, far fewer than in the average pair of pants. It’s great mesquite flavor without too many calories. My family has a nice dinner. Uncle Freddie lives through the night.

***

Note: There are some women who have been sexually abused who cannot handle wearing skirts. My mom had a dear friend who was in this situation. I asked her to be in charge of the gift table at my wedding, and after much anguish, she finally told my mom she didn’t know if she could do it. She figured if she had an official wedding “job,” she’d have to wear a dress, and she just couldn’t bring herself to put one on. I told my mom to tell her that I cared about her, not her clothes. She could wear whatever she wanted to my wedding. I still wanted to honor her with a special role.

I do think that skirts are a great option for most people, but I would never want anything I say here to be used to make someone who’s hurting feel guilty.

Ladies, I have added a new modesty resource to my sidebar, but I’m so excited about it that I thought I’d give them a little extra “press” here as well. The site is called Modest at Heart Clothing, and is one of the home businesses of the Appel family, a homeschooling family with five children. They sell new and gently used modest clothes at GREAT prices (like WholesomeWear swim suits for around fifteen dollars!). They have a wide variety of clothes for the whole family, everything from mainstream styles with good coverage to cape dresses, even a few headcoverings. I just ordered some maternity and nursing clothes from them, and they arrived quickly and were in beautiful condition. I highly recommend checking them out–and no, I’m not getting anything for mentioning them!

I just received a new comment from Kendra on an old post. I found her comment very thought provoking, and since the post was old, I was afraid nobody would see it, so I thought I’d give it some attention here.

I was interested in the comment the writer made that “the Bible doesn’t give hard and fast rules about (modesty), yet we are commanded to dress modestly.” I agree that the Bible does not draw a human body marking the areas God deems necessary to be covered. (This may be to avoid individuals aiming for as little as possible to still scrape by.) However, the Bible does mention some specifics about what is considered “nakedness,” and therefore shameful. Ex 28:42 & Isa. 47:2-3 both mention the thigh as an inappropriate or shameful part of the body to expose. Isa 20:4 speaks of the buttocks and Ezekiel 16:7 mentions breasts in relation to nakedness. These are just a few but they do show us some of the places we ought to cover up in public. Just some food for thought.

I especially found this interesting given what Kathi Armstrong of Summer Setting said about her husband in the comments section of a different post.

He says (and I believe he speaks for the human side of every man) that he is very distracted by women who dress in a way that emphasizes or exposes breasts or thighs, particularly cleavage or slits.

Notice how some of the things that the Bible mentions in connection with “nakedness” are the same things that men feel a visceral sexual response to and that they have to invest mental and emotional energy putting out of their minds in order to stay pure. A further interesting connection is that in the Bible, “uncovering nakedness” has sexual connotations, and is often a euphemism for actual sex.

What do you think? Is modesty totally culturally determined, or does the Bible give us some actual, physical hints at what God considers immodest in the passages Kendra shared? Are there other passages to consider in this discussion? What about the fact that a couple of the passages Kendra brought up (Isaiah 47:2-3 and Ezekiel 16:7) also mention hair, yet few modern Christians consider hair in modesty discussions? Even I don’t, and I’m in the pro-headcovering camp! I’ve never considered it a “modesty thing” and have always covered as a sign to angels (I Corinthians 11:10). Are modern Christians missing something, or is this just an example of the cultural relativism at play here? I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Discussions about modesty can turn hopelessly circular. Women should be modest so men won’t lust after them. But some men tend to lust anyway, so maybe we should all just wear whatever we want. But when we wear whatever we want, men are really tempted to lust after us, so maybe women should try to be modest…A recent comment brought out the frustration quite well:

Sometimes it truly is a matter of the heart and not the eyes (”sometimes” is a key word there ). I was talking to (my sister-in-law) and she mentioned that the worst experience she had with men being sexually disrespectful was in Egypt when she was wearing a long skirt, sleeves down to her wrists and a headcovering. I’ve had two close friends who attended BJU with a strict modesty code, and one of them recently commented to me how much she thought the policing, the constant scrutinizing of every outfit actually exacerbated the problem.

All this to say… it’s a tricky tangle, those issues of modesty and personal responsibility. When you get it all sorted out, be sure to let me know!

Well, I definitely don’t have it ALL sorted out (LOL!), but I do have a few thoughts to share.

As the comment pointed out, there are two issues here, women’s modesty and men’s personal responsibility not to lust.

Timothy 2:9-10 In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.

Mat 5:28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

We are each responsible to keep our end of the bargain no matter what other people are doing. Men are still sinning if they fall into lust even if they are surrounded by tank tops, tight jeans, and mini-skirts. Women are still sinning if they dress and behave immodestly whether or not men are being overtly sexually disrespectful. Different cultures have often allowed either men or women to shirk their responsibilities. In Egypt, it tends to be the men. They are allowed to lust all they want right out in the open, and if it leads to mental adultery or even rape, well that was the woman’s fault. She was asking for it by dressing like that. In Western culture, though, it tends to be the women who get off doing as they please. It’s socially acceptable for them to look and act hot right out in the open, and if it leads to rape or even just mental adultery, well that was the man’s fault. He wasn’t being self-controlled.

Both these extremes are wrong.

Most of us are grossed out by Egyptian behavior, but let’s examine the Western side of the permissiveness coin. Women can’t prevent lust. Responsibility does not rest squarely on our shoulders, but there’s an awful lot we can do to help if we would be willing. Our dress and behavior DO have an effect on men’s lust level. Sure, there are men wholly given over to lust, who can manage to fantasize about what might be under a burka, but most men have a slightly higher threshold, and we really can be a help or a hindrance to an awful lot of them. This was a lesson I learned back in college when I was dancing with the Stanford Ballet Company.

Before I was married, I was incredibly naive about men. I found their attentions thrilling, validating, even titillating. They were also quite rare. For the most part guys completely ignored me because I was usually very modest. My modesty, though, had little to do with understanding men, and a lot to do with wanting to look like the other conservative Christian, homeschool graduates I knew. The only men who paid any attention to me were men who wanted a wife. Looking back, I think that was a compliment, but at the time, I assumed it meant that I wasn’t very pretty, just apparently virtuous.

One day it all changed. It was late November, and like ballet dancers the world over, I was gearing up for another Nutcracker. I had been cast as the Spanish dancer. It was a character I knew well because, with my dark hair, I had been given that role more often than any other. The Spanish dancer is spicy, flirtatious, flamboyant, and my choreography in this production was especially so. I was supposed to spend the entire variation teasing my poor partner while he chased after me.

For weeks in rehearsals that were just for the Spanish variation, I had been focusing on the dancing, mastering the steps and ignoring the character, but on that day in November, the entire cast had come together to start running through the whole show, and that meant we had a bit of an audience. My partner, a Microsoft employee in his late twenties, wanted to get into character. But of course.

The music started. No one was paying attention to us as we stood in our places. And then I opened my fan with a snap that stopped all conversation. I was The Spanish Dancer. In less than two minutes, we were done, and the room erupted in applause. My partner was breathless. “Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “I can’t dance when you look like that.” And like an idiot, I just laughed. I wasn’t about to tone down my character. I knew how to play the part. I did it well. And everyone liked it. They had all just applauded, hadn’t they?

Rehearsals moved into the theater, and I had to wear my costume, black and red, spaghetti straps, typical immodest ballet costume, but sexier. I was the Spanish dancer, after all. My partner, who had always been polite, but aloof, was following me around like a dog follows steak. He brought me flowers. He tried constantly to make conversation. He wondered if I might like a back rub. The other men in the cast, who had previously not even said as much as, “hi,” were now falling all over themselves to flirt with me every time I walked by. I’m very ashamed of this, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it.

I thought it was just attention. I thought it was fairly innocent. Now that I’ve got a husband to explain things to me, I realize that in all likelihood I was being mentally undressed.

After Christmas, we started work on the next show, Peter and the Wolf. I was cast as the duck. I traded my fan for a back scrubber and kiddie pool, my black lace costume for a high-necked, chubby, feathered number, complete with mask. And as quickly as it had begun, the lust fest ended. I went back to my quiet life of being noticed only by men looking for a wife.

Now, let’s think about this a minute. The very same man who couldn’t drag himself away from me when I was wearing an immodest dress and snapping my eyes and fan at him completely ignored me when I was a comedic, well-covered duck, flapping my arms, and fighting the wolf with my back scrubber. Was the guy lust-prone? Um. Yeah. Did my clothes and behavior have an effect. Totally!

Men tend to lust after women. And women tend to lust after being lusted after. We struggle with modesty because we all want to be the Spanish dancer. No one wants to be the duck.

But there are men out there who are fighting hard for integrity. They’re doing battle every day, desperately trying to stay pure and focused on their wives. And what do we do? We whip out our fans. We look hot, on purpose. We flirt. We pose. On purpose. We aren’t about to tone down our characters. We know how to play the part. We do it well. And everyone likes it. They’re paying attention to us, aren’t they? And we’d be lying if we said we didn’t enjoy it.

It’s a heart issue. It’s not about rules. It’s about looking hot. On purpose. It’s about balancing our desire for beauty with an understanding of the depth of its effect. Most of all, it’s about supporting our brothers in battle, accepting a little responsibility of our own, and giving up the “fun” of being lusted after by men we aren’t married to. We don’t need to be ugly, but we do need to pay attention, and constantly examine our own motivation for every outfit and action. It’s time we kept our end of the bargain.

Ten years later, I’m heartbroken thinking of men who took their families to see a “wholesome” show like the Nutcracker and wound up sitting in the dark watching the Spanish dancer, watching me. If I provoked even one man in that audience to lust, then I stole something from his wife. I certainly stole something from the future wives of my fellow cast members. Like I said, I was naive.

Galations 5:13 For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.

Romans 14:21 It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.

1Corinthians 8:13 Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.

Just as a godly, Christian, Egyptian man needs to say, “no,” to his culture and stop ogling women. Godly Christian women of the West need to say, “no,” to our culture and stop deliberately making our brothers weak. We don’t need to be Spanish dancers anymore.

 ***

Note: I just want to be sure and say that, of course, for those of us who are married, we do need to look hot (on purpose!) in private for our husbands.

My husband and I have been talking a lot about modesty lately, and we want to know what you and the man in your life think. Here are a couple questions for you to ask your husband/father/beau:

1. Does the way other women dress affect your man’s ability to focus his attention on you (or on your mom if you’re asking your dad)?

2. All else being equal, if all the women in the whole world, including you, had to wear exactly the same outfit, what would it be? In other words, where’s the point at which you are still attractive to him, but other women are modest enough not to give your man trouble? Have him be specific: length, cut, style, tightness, etc…
I can’t wait to hear your (and your man’s!) thoughts.

A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.

Song of Solomon 4:1

Wives were created to be gardens, places of beauty and rest, rich with the fragrance of ripening fruit and blooming flowers, cool with shade and bubbling springs, mysterious, exotic, delights to their husbands’ souls. If you’re married, then you are your husband’s garden. The question is, what kind of garden are you going to be?

A wife is supposed to be a “garden enclosed,” not a public park. She’s locked up, private, a secret. There’s a wall around this garden that keeps it only for one person. That wall is modesty.

But right away there’s a problem. How can we women be both beautiful for our husbands, and yet “enclosed,” not available for other men to enjoy? This is a more challenging multitasking problem than cooking dinner while holding the baby, stopping a fight, and talking to your mother on the phone. It’s incredibly difficult to be both a good gardener and a good stone mason. An awful lot of women seem to only be able to do one or the other.

First, there are some women who only know how to be gardeners. They spend all their time perfecting their landscaping, pulling weeds, fertilizing, and then put up a little, rickety fence, or maybe just a “Private: Keep Out” sign in the form of a wedding ring. These women are incredibly beautiful and sexual, and everyone knows it. Their husbands are usually very happy with their appearance, but “gardener” women give a lot of other men a terrible time. Whether they know it or not, as they go through life, countless men are having picnic lunches out under their peach trees. And that’s not a good thing. Because, as most of us know, if a man lusts after a woman, he’s committed adultery with her in his heart.

Matthew 5:28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

I’ve heard so many complaints from godly men who have struggled desperately to keep their eyes on a woman’s face and not her body so beautifully revealed, just inches below, so they can get through the conversation as quickly as possible and flee the scene. And these were some of the strongest Christian men I know. I can only imagine what lesser men would do when faced with plunging necklines, tiny skirts, and other attractive tools of the gardening trade.

Often when people bring up the modesty issue, women are quick to point out that it’s not their fault if men sin by lusting after them. And while this is technically true, I often wonder if these women really understand how hardwired men are to feel aroused when they see women’s bodies. It’s a bit like inviting an alcoholic to a party with an open bar, and then saying it wasn’t your fault he got drunk. Of course, it wasn’t your “fault,” but you clearly weren’t making any effort to help the guy, either. We women will never know how many men have had mental affairs with us, but I, for one, would like it to be as few as possible. The answer is to put a wall around our gardens, to dress modestly.

This can be easier said than done. Modesty is a continuum and it is somewhat cultural. But we don’t get to throw up our hands, despair that we can’t figure it out, and then give up entirely. The Bible doesn’t give hard and fast rules about it, yet we are commanded to dress modestly.

1Timothy2:9-10 In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array. But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.

When we’re out in the world, we need to be drawing attention to our Lord and our devotion to him, not to how much fun it would be to take a mental stroll down our garden paths.

Some women get thoroughly convinced of the wisdom of all this and become the second group, women who only work on being stone masons. They erect walls around their gardens fifty feet high, thirty feet thick, with missile launchers on every corner. But when their husbands venture through the massive wooden gates, all they find inside is patchy, half-dead grass. These women are very modest, and only about as much trouble to men as a padlocked liquor cabinet is to an alcoholic. If he really wants to get drunk, he can pick the lock, but that requires effort on his part. The honest souls can make it through the evening sober. But, unfortunately, so can these ladies’ husbands, the men who are actually supposed to be intoxicated with their love.

What these ladies miss is that the reason that modesty is so important is not because immodesty is nasty and evil, but because of what immodesty does to men: it makes them feel wonderful. The problem is not the wonderful feeling. The problem is where it’s coming from. God has ordained that men are supposed to enjoy their wives, and no one but their wives. It’s not enough for a man to simply save sex for his wife, the old, “It doesn’t matter where I work up an appetite as long as I go home for supper” excuse. Men aren’t even supposed to be getting those lovely, warm, ravishing feelings from other women. But they are supposed to have them. You want your husband having picnic lunches under your peach trees and taking mental strolls down your garden paths as often as possible.

Proverbs 5:15-20 Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee. Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife, of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?

And so we come to a sort of double life, one public, one private, a wall, and a garden. Your husband needs time to enjoy his garden, and that can take a little extra effort on your part. You have to be a good stone mason in the morning when you get dressed for the day, and then, sometimes even if you’re tired, you need to do some serious gardening at night. If you haven’t put on gardening gloves in a while, a great place to start is by getting ready for bed early since you have to change your clothes anyway. Take a few minutes to freshen up, brush your hair, put on some perfume if your husband likes it. And then put on a very immodest nightgown. (For this to work if you have children, you’ll have to keep a robe handy.) And remember, you don’t need to initiate intimacy, although chances are, your husband might like it if you did, but that’s not the point. You’re just trying to make sure your husband has a chance to enjoy his garden. Wear something immodest to have a bedtime snack and discuss the day with him. Curl up in next to nothing and watch a movie together in your room. Or find something else that fits your schedule and your family.

So, ladies, let’s dust off the tools we’ve most neglected, whether those are our rakes and hoes, or our grout bags and mason’s levels. Let’s be the kind of gardens the Lord wants us to be: breathtaking, beautiful, locked, and enclosed.

With bathing suit season around the corner, I have been thinking once again about conventional suits. There are, of course, the obvious problems of women in bathing suits being a temptation to men, provoking lust, gaining the wrong kinds of attention, etc. For many modesty-minded women, the choice has been clear for some time. Dare to be different. Wear clothes instead of Lycra lingerie in the pool. But maintaining purity isn’t the only reason to cover up.

Today we bring you Reason # 207: Immodest bathing suits make women feel ugly.

A few years ago, I was standing in the check-out lane at Meijer when I saw a good friend from church. She had seen some bathing suits she wanted to try on but felt she couldn’t because she had her three small children in tow. I said I’d be glad to watch them for her, and she hurried off to try on the bathing suits. After a while she came back. Empty-handed.

“Couldn’t find anything you liked?” I asked.

“No,” she answered, “I don’t like me in a bathing suit.”

Now let me tell you — At the time this happened, my friend was: about a size six, well-endowed, and despite having given birth to three children, appeared not to have an ounce of fat anywhere on her body. If she doesn’t like herself in a bathing suit, what hope is there for us mortals?

It’s almost universal. Women tend to feel ugly and inadequate in bathing suits. No matter how beautiful you are, if you line up with a half dozen other nearly naked women (or worse yet, imagine yourself lined up with swim suit models), every one of them is going to have at least some body part that looks better than the corresponding part on your body. Or maybe you’ve got one thing that really embarrasses you. There it is for all the world to see, and you have a feeling of impending judgment, “How can I show that to anyone, let alone everyone down at the pool? They’ll all think I’m so (fill in the blank: bony, fat, uncurvaceous, covered with varicose veins, cottage cheesy with cellulite, lumpy from pregnancy, etc.).

That level of undress really only belongs within the safety of marriage, where there’s no comparing, only appreciating. I enjoy wearing the equivalent of a bathing suit (or less!) for my husband, and I feel infinitely more beautiful because it’s just the two of us. I would so much rather be my husband’s delicious secret than participate in pool side beauty pageants in which no woman ever feels like the winner.

Someone is going to say, “Well, shouldn’t you just stop comparing yourself to others and learn to accept your body?” Yes, absolutely. The Bible even calls those who are “comparing themselves among themselves…not wise” (2 Cor 10:12). But it’s a whole heap of a lot easier when we aren’t all in our underwear. If my flesh is out in the open right next to your flesh, then the comparisons are virtually unavoidable, but if we keep our flesh covered like wonderful presents wrapped up for later, then what our bodies actually look like is muted and comparison becomes a lot more difficult. I might also add that there’s a big difference between accepting your body and wanting to show it to everyone. A woman may accept the fact that giving life to several children has brought her a multitude of stretch marks. But there’s a slim chance she wants to put on a bikini and show off her tummy to the whole world. And further, even if I were able to conquer the beast of vanity entirely so that I never worried about my body or compared myself to others, knowing how the vast majority of women feel, it would be really uncharitable of me to continue to make it hard for them not to compare themselves to me.

So, I’ve opted out. I’m done feeling ugly. I’m done making others feel ugly by putting myself on display. Now I wear this in the pool, un-trendy perhaps, maybe even to most people a little strange, but modest, and also really freeing. I’ve abandoned the beauty pageant. I’ve got better things to do, like talking with my husband about how to make his behind doors secret more delicious every day. And maybe, just maybe, my willingness to abandon fashion in the name of freedom and charity will inspire someone else out there to get off this crazy train, too. There’s just no point in making ourselves and other women miserable.