A few thoughts on modesty:
--I believe that God has millions of daughters and He knows and loves each one of them. His love is unconditional, precious gift. I also believe that the Lord gives blessings to those who are obedient. "I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say..." (D & C 82:10) There are blessings reserved for those who dress modestly. Some blessings come immediately and some are postponed, but blessings do come.
--Part of dressing modestly is the ability and confidence to stand alone, to be different from those around you. This is a skill that can be developed and is so important, not just for modesty, but for the keeping of other standards too. If everyone is wearing a certain type of dress that is immodest, do you have the courage and strength to say, "I don't care if everyone in the world is wearing that type of dress, I'm not wearing it!"? "Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing." (2 Cor. 6:17) President Monson said, "You be the one to make a stand for right, even if you stand alone. Have the moral courage to be a light for others to follow."
--"There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body." (1 Cor. 15:44) Another scripture about this is: "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." (1 Cor. 3:16, 17) Temples are places of light, beauty, order, and cleanliness.
--I know that the Savior came to earth, that He set the example for us, and that He agreed to willingly lay down His life to redeem us, to pay the price for our sins. Jesus Christ paid the price for my sins. I feel indebted to Him. I want to be true to Him and I am more concerned about pleasing the Lord than I am about pleasing the world. I don't want to do anything that would hurt or offend Him. I have covenanted that I will keep His commandments and always remember Him.
--I have heard people say, "It is my life and it is my body and I can do whatever I want." They forget, or they never knew about the price that was paid. They forget about the debt that we owe to the Lord. "For you are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's." (1 Cor. 6:20)
--Sister Susan Tanner said, "Modesty is a reflection of our hearts."
--Modesty is an attitude--an attitude about ourselves, an attitude about obedience, and an attitude about the Savior. Modesty means we know who we are--we are not daughters of the world but daughters of God.
Thanks for the post.
ReplyDeleteThe principle of modesty gives people another good reason to be themselves instead of keeping up with the Jones's. The more people obey it, the easier it is for everyone to obey it. It's the same for the Word of Wisdom. If we didn't have it, I'm pretty sure most of us would be offered tea and coffee a whole lot more, and have even more pressure to drink it.
Immodesty pressures others to be immodest. It pressures society to over-extend itself. Even with men (e.g. going shirtless when swimming, or playing sports), a culture of immodesty pressures some of them to do things they're uncomfortable with doing, and shames them if they don't do it. Ask any man or boy under 40 if they would be embarrased to wear a shirt to a public swimming pool, and you'll see a hint of what kind of pressure men who want to wear one are under. It looks like that's the kind of pressure celebrity women are under to wear dresses without backs or shoulders. Yes, women do have more people telling them to be modest than men do (and probably a whole lot more than that telling them not to be modest, too, for that matter); no, the pressure for women isn't just about their recreational self/other-image (and even that isn't easy at all). Modest women are strong.