Hookers, heroines, boys, girls, and where the neckline should be.

I was all geared to write a great post on modesty, and then my sister gave me a link to this blog and I think this recent high school graduate articulates my thoughts on the subject way better than I ever could:

http://bighouseinthelittlewoodsblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/very-last-modesty-article-ever.html

But if you don't want to click, here's what I think about that hot topic of modesty (no pun intended!).

First, a quick explanation of where I used to be with modesty.

Those who were raised really conservatively will know what I mean when I talk about "dresses only". I wouldn't say our family was a true "dresses only" family. We had a phase where we threw out a lot of clothes like knit tops and shorts and started wearing mostly skirts/dresses unless we were kicking around with the animals outside or if we were at 4-H functions. Probably the low point in all this was the introduction of the culotte, and if you don't know what this piece of clothing is, thank your lucky stars. I think I did own a homemade culotte at one point, but avoided wearing it at all cost. We did also own modest swimsuits- these horrendous affairs pretty much put any interest I had in going swimming to rest for about 8 or 9 years. I'd like to think that my skin has grown thick enough that I'll share a few pictures to give you an idea. I guess I didn't ask my sisters first but I think they have thick skin, too...

 This was when I was like 15 and had my hair cut for the very first time in my life. I secretly wanted to get a complete bob but this is as short as I was allowed to get it. Note tucked in shirt! Akkkk!

 This was ice-skating for my 16th birthday party, and I'm basically wearing theme and variations on the above outfit. I loved that skirt because it was the closest thing to jeans a skirt could be. Notice the tucked-in shirt club!!! Tucked-inners unite!

Like a lot of things, my parents and my sisters and I have talked about that phase together and we've all moved on. And now I'm here, trying to make sense of what the whole thing is supposed to mean.

I talked to a bunch of people about this to see what they said. I talked to friends, relatives, married people, single people, girls, and guys. Here are some things I heard them saying:

I like it when girls look attractive. (this came from both a guy friend and a girl friend!)
Displaying your cleavage kind of says that you're trying to sell yourself.
Dress like a hooker if you want to be viewed like a hooker.
Modesty is helpful.
A kind girlfriend will dress modestly.
I think spaghetti strap tops are modest.
Someone who wants to dress modestly just will; it's not about wearing a skirt - it's about what's in your heart.
Modesty is being appropriate to the situation.
I want to raise my daughters to be appropriate but I also want to raise them to be able to make wise choices on their own.

I've been places in this world where showing my elbow was seductive.
I've also been places in this world where I felt unnecessarily frumpy in a one-piece swimsuit.
Where is the line?

I don't think there is a line, and to rule-followers this is a scary thing to say, but the truth is that rules don't give us answers; the answer lies in our attitudes.

The New Testament, believe it or not, has only one verse (one verse!) that specifically addresses modesty, 1 Timothy 2:9. It is very vague, and says that in church, women just need to be modest, decent and appropriate. And I think that's about as specific as we should answer the modestly question. As stated above, a lot of guys will be able to tell you what is pretty universally "not OK", but my brother in law also said most guys who don't want to keep their minds off sex will probably think inappropriate things no matter how much you wear (and this is why in some muslim countries, a woman with a burqua but with gold bracelets showing will still get crude attention)

So are spaghetti strap tops really modest? How about jeans? How about shorty-shorts?

How about you stop asking questions about what you can or can't wear, take a look at your culture, and say, "how do I want to present myself?" If you want to present yourself as a hooker, go ahead, just don't expect to be treated like someone running for president. If you want to present yourself as frump-girl, that's your choice, just don't expect to land many jobs as a department store model. If you'd rather be known for your brains and not your body, wearing a spaghetti strap top in the office probably won't help you with that.

Dressing for everyone else's standards is an impossible road. It's also impossible to walk down the street without being automatically labeled based on the clothes you wear.

So it's up to you! It's up to where the Lord has you right now! It's up to how you choose you want to present yourself! Perhaps some things I personally wear may be called immodest by certain groups of people, but I don't anticipate ever being mistaken for a hooker, and that is good enough for me.

Happy Sunday!

Karen

Birth control can glorify the Lord

Right now, I'm wondering what the heck I'm doing, posting all of this stuff on my blog. I think it's my therapy, personally.

This one has been addressed so much better in longer posts, so if you're interested, you can read the articles on this blog: http://resolved2worship.xanga.com/761481799/not-quiverfull-part-1-of-3/
And since really this issue doesn't directly apply to me, I don't have a whole lot to say. But it is in a sense an ethical issue, and it's one I've thought over and been challenged by.

The argument I've used before AGAINST birth control (back when I was dreaming of a prairie muffin life) is you aren't trusting the sovereignty of God. (God knows better than you how many kids you can handle)
But if God is sovereign, how is my decision to use birth control going to stop God?
God's given me wisdom to make choices for my life. I've made choices to go to school, take jobs, move to places. I believe that none of my choices have made God go, "shoot, wow she just screwed up my plan for her life. Now what am I going to do?"

So I think you should follow your conviction; what God has placed on your heart and not give yourself a guilt trip. Use your head, use your wisdom God has given you. This is how birth control can glorify the Lord. And hold your decisions with an open hand, knowing God IS sovereign and while we are responsible to make wise choices, God has the power to upset even the most carefully laid plans.

Do I judge people who have a boatload of children? No. They've made their choices, and it isn't my call to say people must choose what I've chosen. Should big families judge small families? No! God isn't so concerned about the size of our family but whether we have a living relationship with Him. Do you really think God is going to look at us in heaven and go, "way to go, Dave and Susie! you have 14 kids (or 7...or 4....or 2)! I'm really proud of the way you persevered in My will!" I think God is more going to say, "You grew to know and love me then, get ready to know me in ways that will blow your mind now! Welcome to heaven!"

Know Jesus.

Karen

Dating isn't bad

I was raised with courtship as the ideal system. This was supposed to be like dating, only fool-proof. Your parents would help you decide who was the best person for you to spend the rest of your life with and you wouldn't spend much time alone together, but play games with each other's families (who would be best friends, by the way) and never touch each other and you would only say "yes" when he popped the question if your dad had said "yes" before you did. In fact, the most ideal courtships were those when the girl was asked to be courted, but had no idea that James liked her.

The idea is that if you date someone, you're probably going to break up. You'll probably have sex in the car before you're even engaged and when you finally get married (70 boyfriends later) your marriage will be a disaster because you won't be able to love your husband because you used up all the love in your love tank on all these other guys. The effects of a broken heart are irreversible, so avoid this at all cost.

In fact, the best way to avoid heartbreak is to not even have guys who are friends. Girls who have guy friends are immoral. Don't even look at them. Ignore them, even if you think they're cute. They're supposed to worship you from afar and then talk to your dad about you anyway, so you just need to put your blinders on and keep working on handcrafts for your future home and not even think about who you might be living in that future home with.

Let me just say, this is BACKWARDS. Maybe that worked back in the day when girls were property of their parents and were used as currency for business trade, but it's not the norm anymore, nor does it need to be. While I know some friends who have found wonderful husbands through the courtship paradigm, I've known even more who have found wonderful husbands on their own. Even when they were living far away from their parents. Gasp.

Here are just a few faulty assumptions this system is based on:

An adult of marriageable age is not capable of knowing what is important in a husband/wife
It may be true that a 16 year old does not know what is important in a future spouse. But that's OK because a 16 year old usually does not have to worry about getting married at this age. What is important in a good relationship? Good communication with the person you are with, similar goals and interests, and mutual attraction. These are things that are different from person to person, and by the time you're in your early to mid twenties, if you've been able to experience life enough that you know what your own communication style, goals, and interests are, you will be pretty much able to tell who you might want to spend the rest of your life with.

You can never recover from a broken heart
I do know people tell me broken hearts are hard and that it's not something you want to seek out for yourself. I also know that anything worth having involves a risk. Even a platonic friendship involves a risk if it's going to be a deep friendship worth having. To say that the effects of a broken heart are irreversible is to deny the healing power of God. If we're to avoid any possibility of a broken heart just because they hurt, that means we also shouldn't climb mountains, drive cars, play sports, or fly in airplanes. If you want to live life, you need to risk getting hurt. Don't go jumping off cliffs, but don't stay in your room, either. God is faithful to His promise that all things work out together for good.

Guy+girl+alone=Sex
By assuming this is true, you are setting yourself up for a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you say you're weak and that you're going to fall to temptation, you will. And I'll just say I've been completely alone with guys with whom there was a mutual attraction and sex did not occur.


Dating is practice for divorce
Divorce is caused by a disposable attitude toward marriage. Divorce is caused by thinking the other person needs to meet your expectations only. Divorce is caused by marrying someone with whom you really aren't compatible with. Divorce is caused by hurtful behavior on the part of one or more parties. None of these things are exempt from a courtship relationship. In fact, many people in the courtship movement have such rigid expectations for what a person needs to be to be worthy of a relationship that it creates that atmosphere in which the other person needs to meet your expectations. Also, by marrying someone you haven't really been able to get to know (because you've never been alone together), it's quite possible to marry someone you really aren't that compatible with. And the disposable attitude? That has more to do with your view of marriage, not your view of courtship or dating. Hurtful behavior? We're all capable of this, no matter what!


Your parents have to be intimately involved in your relationship
I hope that I can always have a good relationship with my parents. I respect them highly and value my friendship with them. Ultimately, though, the goal is not to stay as close with them as an adult as I was as a child. I hope that my sisters and I can become independently functioning adults. This means that my sisters and I might not have the same values as our parents. We might live life differently and see the world differently. My parents have raised us as best as they know, but now we have the responsibility to live our own lives. To think that my parents need to approve of my choice in a spouse before I am allowed a voice is absolutely ludicrous. I hope they will be happy with the person I choose, but a sign of good parenting is that a parent can trust their adult children to make important decisions on their own. If I am incapable of this, I probably shouldn't be left to run loose at Wal-Mart.

Bottom line: I really can't give relationship advice since (as I wrote before) I haven't ever had my own boyfriend. But I see where I am right now as part of a long process. I've been so entrenched in my thinking that it's taken all of this time for me to deprogram it from my thinking and I'm still a paranoid control freak. Change takes awhile and I'm eagerly awaiting that point where I can have an open relationship with a man (whether it leads to marriage or not) without feeling guilty, controlling, paranoid, or fearful. I hope I can finally see dating as an exciting way to get to know someone for who they are, and not always trying to make someone fit my expectations. I hope someday I can learn to love, because true love can never be found in a system, a process, or a list, but in risk, in adventure, and in the Lord.

Hating Gays does not Glorify God

So yesterday I was driving with a woman I'm getting to know from my bible study. She looks like a Mennonite but is really a German Baptist and we were going to a Russian fabric store together and listening to KLove in her car.

We were talking about our churches, the Russian Old Believers, and enjoying the sunny day when she suddenly sat up straight and asked me a question:

"Do you think people are born gay??"

It was so funny, the whole situation. Seriously, I wish you could all meet Dawn. She is the coolest lady ever.

What was my answer?

"I think they are."

And she agreed with me.

Rather than make this a horribly long post by trying to explain exactly why I think this (and I think I wrote about this a year ago, too), let me just say this:

Homosexuals, just like heterosexuals, are people.

So let's stop the fuss and start treating each other with the love that God has for all humanity.

Maybe you're saying, "Well, those people are living in sin and God hates sin! God wouldn't want them to stay in the situation they are in!"

But do you envy other people? Do you do things to get your own way? Are you proud?

In the New Testament, you're lumped right along there with all the gays in the deadly sins list.

Jesus died for you! Even when you still decide to act sinfully! God loves you, even when you fail Him again, and again, and again.

I don't think homosexuals should live in a homosexual lifestyle, but I think you can still remain "gay" and be a christian. I know there are people out there who are going to say that's too lenient of a view, and others are going to say I'm still blinded in my thinking. From my reading of the Bible, I can't see homosexuality as anything other than that, and you're completely entitled to your opinion, so go ahead and have it.

What does annoy me is gay people I've met who are consumed with sex, and all they can talk about is off-color jokes and make innuendos with every comment that comes out of their mouth. But I know a whole heck of a lot of straight people who are just the same way, and I feel the same way about that kind of stuff coming out of a straight person's mouth.

Part of being like Christ is loving like Christ, who spent time with all the people, from the religious to the outcasts. Christ showed love to everyone, right where they were. He wanted to open their eyes to how marvelous the Lord is, not just make their outsides look right to the world.

Love each other - it's up to God to heal the blind and set the captives free. All we can do is walk together on this journey and point each other to the greatest treasure we can ever know.

K

Being Single is not a curse

I've decided to write a little about some of the things that have become clearer to me over the past few years, as kind of an extension of my last post.

First, let me tell you what I'm doing right now.

I'm sitting in a computer chair, listening to Death Cab for Cutie on Pandora in my bedroom. My other roommate is in her other room. I had a granola bar, peanut butter on a slice of cheddar cheese for dinner along with some fruit. I'll probably try to hit the sack as soon as I finish this post. I'm a 25 year old who has a bachelor's degree in music and is not sure what the next 3 years will hold. When people ask me if I have a boyfriend, I say "no".

And I've always said no when people ask me that question.

I've wanted to get married since I was 12. Yes, laugh at that if you will, but it's true. I love that my parents have never made me feel like my only option in life was marriage, and encouraged my endeavors to further my education. I've never really doubted my ability as a girl to do anything I set my mind to. Well, except maybe being a heavy machinery operator, but that never seemed very attractive as a career path, anyway.

The culture, though, has a powerful effect on a person. And the culture I grew up in told me over and over that once I graduated from high school, the race would begin. The race to get married as soon as you could so you could start having babies at a really early age so you could have a lot of them. That was what I thought I wanted out of life.

My little ideal future life included a farmhouse, a Little-House-On-The-Prarie type of existence, with some kind of specimen from the male species, a rocking chair on the front porch, and the multitudes of pinafored offspring we would produce.

And I grew up a little and the dream kind of lingered but the male specimen never really arrived, and then my baby sister came up with a specimen of her own and got married and started having her babies, although I doubt they will ever have pinafores and her rocking chair is in her living room and she buys her food at Costco.

I really questioned my self-worth during that time of transition. I think I've already written a bit about it. If you've spent your whole life thinking that "arriving" meant getting married but it doesn't happen, it's only natural that you'd start wondering if something was wrong with you. I mean, I know I'm not perfect and I do mess up relationships with other people so maybe if I just work hard enough at improving myself, God might deem me holy enough to get married. I grew pretty shallow over time trying to be good enough to get married.

And then one day I started looking around and realized that my little ideal prairie muffin lifestyle was not something I really wanted, and not something I've ever really wanted. It was something that my culture wanted for me and I wasn't fitting into my culture anymore.

One way to beat feeling sorry about your circumstances it to laugh at them and tell them you don't care.

Yeah, sure, I'd like to get married someday, but I've decided it's not going to be to some random specimen of the male species. I think marriage is important enough that I'll live without it until I find someone I can't live without.

 Who are "they" to tell me having a park bench all to yourself isn't fun????

And you know? I think all those early-marriage fans out there were trying to hide something from all of us naiive, sheltered teenagers: Being single in your 20s is a blast! There's no other time in your life when you can eat granola bars with cheese and peanut butter for dinner, decide to bike to a park to write in your journal, stay up until 10:30 writing a blog post listening to Death Cab for Cutie. There's no other time in your life when you have unlimited freedom to learn, to experience, to grow, and to serve. I hope I can find a guy eventually with whom I can learn, experience, grow, and serve alongside, but it's going to be different than it is now. When you're responsible for more than just your own care and feeding and maybe that other person in your life can't just subside on cheese and peanut butter and granola bars, it just isn't as possible to randomly bike to parks whenever you feel like it.

I know being married someday will be superb and I plan making it extraordinary with that man I can't live without. But in the meantime, it's a wonderful, wild thing to be sitting in my apartment with a music degree and no idea what the next 3 years might hold.

Singles unite and CELEBRATE!

Karen

Forgetting. And remembering.

I hope that after a few years' perspective, I'd have a more balanced opinion of the way I was educated. I feel like I'm beating a dead horse because this has been the topic of so many journal entries and discussions with my friends and sisters but I realized I haven't put a whole lot of it up here.
For the record, when people find out I was taught by my mom, they usually ask me how I liked it. I usually tell them it was like most education: there's good in it, and bad in it. The good was the flexibility, and becoming a self-learner. The bad was trying to figure out how to relate to my peer group at age 17, and the legalism. I tell most people that I'd be very open to homeschooling my elementary-school aged children, less excited about it for my junior high and high school aged children. But who is to know what the future has in store.

But let me say, we all have pasts. We all have stories. We all have paths we've tread and I really don't know why God has chosen to make each one of our ways different from everyone else. Our past is part of who we are, but it doesn't have to be what we will become. I tell myself this because I hope it is true.

I took a trip on my bike to the park with a sandwich, my bible, and journal, hoping that writing some of my thoughts down would lend some clarity to what I've been trying to find in my head.

I started in Psalms and ended in Philippians, with the conclusion that Jesus means more than all of the junk I'd been wanting to write about.

Faith so simple. It's all about Jesus and knowing Him.

Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 


And that Prize is Jesus himself. 


It's not really worth it to sit and blame the way I am for the way I was raised. None of us can help the way we were raised. But we all can do something with it. I want to choose to be closer to the Lord because of it.

However, part of letting go sometimes means looking back - it's a sifting process of keeping the good and throwing out the bad. That's what I want to do here.

  
So here is what I want to forget. And what I want to remember.


What I want to forget:

My worth is based on what I do.
 Some will say that my works reveal my heart. What if I do the right things because I want to look good or because I'm insecure or because I'm sheltered? The inside is still bad. The inside needs to be healed. And I know the great Healer who tells me that I am worthy because He loves me.

I can earn love.
I didn't earn the love of Christ when He died for me. I don't earn the love he shows me every day. And I can never earn anyone's love. Love is a gift I receive. I want to finally get to that point where I can accept love and not stress out about trying to earn it, even if it's already been given to me.

Others have to earn my love. 
A lonely path. To think others need to meet my expectations before I will let them in. To think they need to play by my rules to join in my game. No one ever meets my expectations. God isn't calling me to love the few or love the chosen or love the safe or love the normal. God is calling me to love all the way He loves them.

Christ started the good work that I have to complete. 
He who began a good work in me will complete it. I might do everything according to the sanctification booklet, but the name of Christ still may not be magnified. This is what it means to glorify Christ: not to do everything right, but let Him be everything in my life that is right.

There is only one way to walk the Christian walk.
If there is, why did God make each of us different? Unity is loving the same thing, not doing the same thing.

That I can figure life, God, and others out by thinking correctly.
Reality is that there are some issues that don't have easy answers. Reality is that there are some things that happen that never get explained. Reality is that sometimes 2 and 2 don't equal 4 even if we do all our calculations correctly. If we expect we'll get results by following some formula, we are setting ourselves up for disappointment.

What I want to remember:

Nothing is more important than a life that always is getting to know Jesus Christ better. Knowing Him in the fullest sense of the word. To know Christ is to breathe His essence, to experience His nature, to talk with Him, to be changed by Him, to be satisfied completely in His presence. To gain a hunger for Him that will only be satisfied when we will someday see Him as He is. 

Perhaps there will be more to come. I could beat myself up for being up until midnight writing this, but I don't think my self worth is contained in what time I go to bed at night. It's OK. God's purposes are probably more grand than my preconceived ideals of what a proper bedtime is.

Goodnight. May you taste the freedom we all have in our Lord Jesus Christ, and see that it is good.

K

Friday

Sun.
Clean kitchen and clean carpets
Clean clothes drying outside
Strawberry chocolate smoothie
Emily for a piano lesson. I missed her so much.
Sore throat.
New tank tops being used
Love my new haircut still
Family time this weekend
Sun!...
SUN!!!

Who is God today?
I'm coming up dry.
Hate it when it's like this.
Life's great, but I've lost sight of God.
Lord, bring me again to you.

Praying that He can make me what I need to be: less judgmental, more loving. Only He can chip this into my character because I sure as good golly can't.
Praying I can delight in Him.
And trust Him.

Here is what I look like when I blog, and here is what my new haircut looks like...new as in this length for over a month and this particular length for one week. LOVE IT. Short hair rocks! Seriously, for someone who values speed and ease, why did I not get the short hair memo earlier???

Weekends are the best!

K