The One About Modesty...

 

Now wait a second.

Before I go on with this one, I want to make you sure of something.

Every Christian girl has gone through the "modesty" talk at one point in her life. I don't want to bring about any sort of PTSD flashbacks of various awkward summer camp/youth group "Girl Talks." (You know this has happened to you at least once!)

This is a different talk on modesty. It's not going to be about what I think is or isn't modest, or how I think you should or shouldn't dress. It's quite the contrary.

This is actually me ranting a little bit. 

And by ranting, I'm not by any means saying that modesty is "bad" or "wrong." Modesty is biblical, and to say that it isn't would be a lie. God wants us to dress modestly. But what does that mean? 

To a lot of people, modesty has a "what not to wear" list. Some people go harder on this list than others, and sometimes, when someone strays from the "list," they're approached for being immodest.

I don't like the list. 

I mean, obviously there are just some things you shouldn't wear. Like this.

Work it.

But there are a lot of variables that we don't really take into account, and these are the things I want to talk about. 

Culture

I really think that modesty is relevant to culture. To dress appropriately in Brazil might not be the same as it would be in Pakistan. It's totally normal to see a woman's midriff in India, but there are other standards of dressing there that we wouldn't even consider. Does that mean they're wrong and we're right?

Each culture has different aspects of the opposite sex that they find sensual. For some cultures it's legs, for others it's the midriff, etc. So we see people in those cultures covering up differently. It's when you wear something that draws attention to what's sensual in that culture that you start getting stares.

Time Period
Somewhat related to culture, modesty is also in a lot of ways relevant to time period. A culture's ideas of what's physically attractive changes over time. It was at one point scandalous to show your ears! Obviously most people can look at ears now without a second thought. At another point it was ok to wear a low-cut dress, but it was incredibly inappropriate to show your ankles. Style and fashion fluctuate so much over time, that it would be impossible to keep a single standard of how to dress.

Body Type

This one is huge, and I think it's one that isn't considered at all through the "list" mentality. We aren't all given the same body type, so we can't exactly dress it the same way. Tank tops can show too much skin on one girl and be totally fine for another. The same shorts could look too short on one girl and the right length on another. And that leads me to yet another thing that annoys me: The "fingertip test." 

If you've never had to do the fingertip test, it goes like this: If you naturally let your hands fall at your sides, wherever your fingertips are, that's where the hem of your shorts should be. That's all fine and good... but for me, my arms are like this.

And my fingers are like this.

So you can imagine my frustration.

Activities

There are a lot of sports or activities that call for uniforms or articles of clothing we wouldn't typically wear all the time. You wouldn't wear a leotard to church. You wouldn't wear a swimsuit to the store. But does that make those things immodest?
My opinion is no.
There are certain sports and activities that require the uniforms they have, not to be "flashy" or "sexy," but for practicality's sake (unless you're the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders...)

Then there are swimsuits.
This one is a delicate topic, and it hits a nerve in every Christian in one way or another. I honestly still don't know exactly where I stand. There are some Christians who can, with a clear conscience, wear bikinis. I'm not personally one of those people (but I'm definitely not condemning anyone who does!)
There are obviously tons of swimsuits that are designed to show off our "assets" in the most provocative ways possible, but not all of them are built like that. My general opinion is this: Swimming at all is risky in terms of modesty, because water likes to cling to fabric. And pull things down... or off...
This renders it impossible to be as modest as you typically are, no matter what. It's not everyone's attitude to wear swimsuits that expose things they don't usually expose-- sometimes it just happens! So my "rule" would be to wear something practical while covering up the obvious, stay away from anything that can be easily undone (or seriously double-knot that sucker), and go swimming. The good news is that one pieces are making a comeback! There are actually a lot of really cute "retro" swimsuits that are coming out that are really cute and cover stuff up.

Attitude

This one is being neglected by a lot of Christian circles too, and I think it's really important to note.

I could wear a turtleneck, a headdress, a jumper and a Snuggie and still be immodest. How?
Modesty doesn't only lie in how you dress, but your attitude.
If you're acting in a way that distracts you or others, whether by bragging or flirting, you're being immodest.

If we have the right attitude, we don't want to be a distraction to guys. Sometimes girls go a little overboard in constantly worrying about being a "stumbling block" to boys. Even though it's a good thing to be conscious of our "menfolk" (lol), it's impossible to please everyone. If we got every guy's opinion of what they found distracting or immodest and dressed ourselves with that list in mind, we would be walking around like this.

And I don't think that's very practical... :P

And men (if there are any men brave enough to make it this far), we aren't responsible for your thought lives. We should definitely do what we can to not be a distraction to you, but ultimately it isn't on us, just like it isn't on you if we have struggles with our thoughts. We all have the power to think about anything we want, but that doesn't mean we should. ;P

Sometimes, in the same way that girls use the way they dress to attract attention from the opposite sex, they can also use the way they dress to gain acceptance in whatever social circle they're in. Even Christian ones. Some girls could be following "the list" to perfection because they believe that those rules are right. Other girls might just be following them to fit in with the girls who go by the list, but wind up dressing just to please other people. Either way, God doesn't want us to constantly worry and obsess about how we look on any level. He doesn't want us to constantly worry or obsess about anything, really.

He wants us to lean on Him.

Which is why it's important not to try to please other people with how we dress. This is where we go wrong with modesty.
I remember one of the teachers at Summit Ministries saying, "Purity isn't a line, it's a direction."
If purity was a line, we'd just try to get as close as we could to it without stepping over it. If it's a direction, we look to God for guidance on how we dress and behave. This is how we need to approach this. We need more God and less us... in every sense of the phrase. ;)

So that's my opinion on modesty. Maybe I've opened a can of worms... but I honestly hope that I didn't step on anyone's toes!

What are your thoughts?

Boyfrieeen

Guys, I did it. I found "The One."

Well really, I didn't find him. He found me. 

It's a funny story, actually. I was hurriedly walking down the misty morning streets by myself, when I crossed this adorable chihuahua in the middle of the street. I went over to pet her, but little did I know that she was going to lash out and attack me! I screamed in terror, but it was too late. The angered canine had latched its talons to my leg and would not let me go. 

All the sudden, I felt it lifted from me, and the chaos was over. When I looked up, there was a dashing young man cradling the once-livid animal calmly in his arms. He looked up at me with eyes that seemed to peer into my very soul and grab hold of the breath within my lungs. "Are you ok?" He spoke in a half-whisper that reverberated through my entire being. All that I could say was "Ahblah." Which, in retrospect, was probably my soul speaking something I cannot entirely understand. 

He took me to the hospital to get a rabies vaccine. From there we've been together ever since. 

So you're probably dying to get to know more about this guy. I will be more than happy to satisfy your curiosity. 

His name is Rayon. Rayon Barcelona. 

This picture of him was taken for the news, after he singlehandedly saved a man from a stampede of dolphins. You didn't think that could happen? That's probably because Rayon has stopped them all. He's on the NDADS (National Defense Against Dolphin Stampedes). He founded it himself. 

Rayon's favorite activities are traveling, writing poetry, playing the guitar, assisting the elderly, and teaching orphan children how to knit. He had a hard time with the latter after his dolphin accident, which was a really hard time for him. I was there to hold him when he cried. Even though he's so successful and saintly, he's so real.

He says that cooking is one of his greatest talents and cleaning is cleansing to his spirit. 

Here he is helping me open a pickle jar. He's always so very helpful. 

We've been on countless adventures since we've met. Here we are at the beach.

He took me there before his modeling tour.

Oh, isn't he just so ROMANTIC?!

I admit, my devoted blog followers, that I've kept our relationship hush-hush for a long time. It is not from shame (far from it!), but because I wanted to keep all of you girls from getting ravenously jealous. Of course, I cannot help it if you feel like now that Rayon is taken you have a gaping hole in your life. But don't worry. You'll still find someone someday... even if he's half as handsome and has only accomplished a fraction of the same feats.

Did I have you guys going for a second?

Maybe I had a little too much fun with this one... ;) I think if Rayon was real he'd probably drive me nuts.

(This post was loosely inspired by Eli's Mommy Blog. If you've never seen it... GO THERE. He's hilarious!) ;)

Just write something!

Currently on blogger, in my accumulating list of abandoned drafts, I have a list that looks like this (beware of spoilers!):

Hopefully you guys know me a lot by now, and know that I'm not just a carefree, modest, romantic bookworm who likes to compare armpits to head lice while playing the keyboard with my feet.

This is one of my classic symptoms of writer's block.
And maybe ADD.
By the science of deduction you can follow my reasoning perfectly. Here at the beginning, I thought "Hey! I haven't written in my blog in FOREVER. This will not do." So I did the first logical thing I could think of: I started a list. 
Now what can I put on this list? I pondered.
The first mediocre idea blasted quickly into my brain after looking at my bookshelf.
Books! This is good stuff. Now what...? 
Well... there's my piano keyboard.
It went downhill from there. I got distracted and started writing the first random things that came to my brain. It was amusing, but then I remembered I needed to get serious. I need real ideas. And that's where the last four ideas come into play. Simple.

Why am I telling you about my thought process?
Because let's just say that it isn't just the list I've been doing this with.
Let's just say that I have a list of half-finished drafts because I lose momentum and come to a slow, sputtering halt. It's awful. I either second guess my ideas, or get too lazy to think them through, so they never get written.

But today I met a couple friends of my grandparents. They're a nice couple who are really into all different kinds of art, one of them being writing. "Writing is a lost art," the husband kept telling me.
I believe him, since stuff like this is getting published...

They were really encouraging when I told them that I wanted to be a writer. When complaining to the wife about my current writer's block, she gave me some advice: Just write something! Even if it's something small, like about the weather, or something interesting you've seen. Because writing, just like every other thing that you love, requires work. It isn't always just a muse.

Sometimes I feel like if my posts aren't funny, then they aren't interesting. I could even be almost done with a post, read over it, and go "um... this isn't funny. I need to do something about this!" And maybe I'm trying too hard... :P

I just need to write stuff. Lots of stuff. All kinds of things about armpits and head lice and jelly beans and pot stickers and fuzzy socks and mouth guards. Maybe my posts can't always have a high success rate, but at least I'll be writing something. ;)

What's on my Desktop???

And for another installment of WOMD, I'm going to the "little laptop."

This is the laptop that the little kids mostly use. 

This is where you see true weirdness. 

...And there's that dog in the Santa hat again. He somehow must've been important enough to make an appearance on both desktops. :P

Ok, this one was me. XD 

A picture of Easter from forever ago. I'm kind of dressed like a Kindergarten teacher...  :P

My friend Foster's little sister from a few years ago

Kianna in the bath tub. This was back when she liked baths...

My mommy. :) I think she was about 5 months pregnant with Kianna in this one. 

This one seems to be an evil bunny who can reproduce via mitosis...  I've never known fear like this... 

Oh, the wonderfully disturbing things you can do with Mac Photo Booth. 

Since you can't eat virtual cakes, my sisters feel the need to take screenshots of them instead.

Unless they're jellybeans.

My Neighbor Totoro! :D 

Yet another weird Photo Booth picture. I think those are her arms...?

My sisters really like Studio Ghibli movies. XP 

This bunny looks harmless enough, but in case she's associated with evil amoeba bunny, I'd be careful...
Also, what's in that giant egg? O_O

What's on my Desktop???

In our family, we have 2 laptops. We have 7 people using those two laptops. Among those seven people, we have people who like to drag onto the the desktop uploaded pictures, random internet funnies and even more random screenshots of presumably nothing. Which leads me to my newest blog segment.

WHAT THE HECK IS ON MY DESKTOP?!?! 

This segment is guaranteed to always have new material, because as I type this, there is a desktop full of random pictures to be posted. And this is just one of the laptops. 

So let's get started! 

I don't know who these people are.... 

That's low. Real low. 

Lilo! :D 

XD

Kika!

:P

It's a dog. In a Santa hat.

I really don't know what's going on in this one. I think that's a pumpkin biscuit Karly's holding...

Ok, yeah. They were making biscuits.

Dancing! :D

My mom decided to make her own lip balm. :P

*derp* 

Bunkbed

Bunkbed again.

And yet another picture of the bunk bed. 

Memory Monday: Reverse Kidnapper

I am the queen of awkward situations.

I don't know how, but they just find me. It's like I emanate a vapor of misfortune and incoordination that attracts awkward situations like lost little woodland creatures to a natural spring of water. It's really quite beautiful.

This awkward situation is one I'm reminded of whenever we drive by a certain house in our neighborhood.

I've mentioned a few times here that I'm involved in fundraising for the Pregnance Resource Center. One of the ways that I raise money is by going door to door in my neighborhood. A couple years ago, a friend and I were fundraising in my neighborhood, and came to a cute little house with a stay-at-home mom and her two kids. She listened to our little speech and told us she'd really like to donate, but she'd have to talk to her husband first, so maybe we could come back some other time. We agreed, and after saying goodbye, we went on to other houses.

We didn't raise as much money as we had hoped, and my friend asked me if I was going to go back to that lady's house later.

At first I wasn't sure if I wanted to. What if she wasn't actually expecting me to come back? She told us we could come back later, though, so it's not like I didn't get some sort of invitation. And think of the babies! 
It was my duty to go back and claim that money. It was for the greater good, anyway.

I told my grandpa about it, and he wanted to come with me. He gave me a ride over to their house and waited in the car as I walked up to the door.

Little did I know that what waited for me was yet another awkward moment.

The woman answered with her toddler standing at the door in nothing but a diaper. I could see the surprise on her face when she recognized me. "Oh, um... I'm sorry... I still haven't talked to my husband yet... let me call him..." Already the discomfort of the situation wrapped around me like an itchy sweater.

She left her toddler standing in front of me in the doorway. He looked up at me with these huge eyes and a puzzled look on his face. I smiled down at him and said hello, but he didn't return the sentiments.

Instead, he took off running down the street.

I didn't want him to run into the road, so I went after him (he hadn't gone too far yet), and picked him up. I set him back where he was standing in the doorway, looking a bit shaken by having a strange girl pick him up.

That's when he started crying. Really loud.

In shock I stood there, wondering what to do. I felt like some sort of reverse kidnapper. Every second felt like another minute as I tried to calm him down.

The woman came to the door and I told her what happened, and she thanked me, making it feel a little less weird. Then she handed me a twenty dollar bill. I felt gratitude, triumph and accomplishment rise in my chest. There were more obstacle than expected, but I did it!

Then she asked me if I had change for $10.

So I got change from my grandpa, thanked her, and drove away, feeling the fleece blanket of my own awkwardness irritating my skin. At least it went to a good cause. :P

Les Miserables

Hello, guys!

So... HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
Through Christmas and New Years I've been busy reading like crazy, writing excessively, putting together 500 piece puzzles, playing boardgames and assembling legos.

I also kicked off the new year by going to see Les Miserables.

  Yesterday I walked into the movie theater knowing next to nothing about it. 

   I walked out of the theater like this. 

And sort of like this 

It was powerful, intense, heart-wrenching, tragic, and...AMAZING!

The plot was a story of redemption, forgiveness and bravery.
The characters each had a depth to them that went beyond a lot of movies' regular superficial portrayals. The characters were portrayed in a way that showed you the state that their souls were in.

 It made you admire and have compassion for each character, even if you didn't agree with what they were doing or saying. (Except for the Inn Keepers. They're scumbags). ;P

From an artistic standpoint, the movie was also beautifully made. The camerawork was amazing.

 Also, don't let the fact that this movie is a musical be the only reason you don't want to see it. I don't typically like musicals (although the only musicals I've seen are High School Musical, Dreamgirls, Mama Mia and the Cheetah Girls... ;) but I think the singing added a lot to the movie. It just sort of amplified the emotions the characters were feeling, and it was really moving.

^This part. D:

It's a movie that's tragically beautiful, making you sad and happy and feeling like you've just witnessed something special.

Also, Jean Valjean is a total boss.