Beauty, Pornography, Clothing, and Jesus

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Recently a few ideas have caught my attention. I think that Mary Kassan encapsulates this thought process about the blogs and verbiage that have accompanied it well (I urge you to read her thoughts!). There is a conversation being walked out about the idea of women and beauty. I have heard from a number of male pastor’s and the idea that it is Biblical to “keep yourself up” for your husband. Although this is a very important topic and there is a lot to be said on both sides, this is not what I want to talk about.

A few years ago I wrote on the struggle, I had while dating a boy trapped inside of a man’s body. He was addicted to pornography and I knew this even before I had proof. I was not saved at the time so I responded as a girl outside of grace would; I tried to become the girl he had in his head. When I was saved, I was able to forgive him. I was able to see how I responded wrongly in the situation. I was able to repent. You can read about this in-depth here: Breakthrough. My response to his problem was very wrong, and I am wondering if women in Church are doing a similar thing?

As I survey the wide landscape that makes up the body of Christ, I see many responses to beauty. I walk into a church building at times and feel no different to the cocktail I used to be. Men’s hearts are dark. I also know that I have used my beauty to sinfully captivate attention. Women’s hearts are dark. Thus, we reach a conundrum. How do we as women, become the crown of creation, as God intended, without the nature of sin taking this gift and warping it?

We can’t.

There is no way that we can walk in who we were created to be without the restorative nature of Christ redeeming us daily. Without redemption, we only have the ability to use our form for evil. I emphatically believe that there is a physical response to an inward reality, and women who are struggling with worth, self-esteem and the idea of love are always responding outwardly. This outward expression is one I stumbled into not in a healthy discussion surrounded by fellow believers, but at beauty school. A radical phenomenon happens when a woman has a fight with her significant other, instead dealing with her relationship, she would overhaul her hair. This was always so illogical to me, it made no sense to fight an inward battle with an outside appeal to beauty.

I think that this is similar to what the Church has done to the idea of beauty. Instead of dealing with the real issue, we are making women who are down, inside and out, only feel worse. This is not love, this is shame. I grew up in a “church” where it was never ok, to be beautiful on the outside. We were taught that outward beauty caused a man to stumble and it was our responsibility to dress “appropriately”. There is a huge off-kilter message among churches. The idea that we as women want to be dumpy, or that we are trying to be “loose” is absurd. I would say that there is a perfectly good reason that women have responded in the ways they have. No matter what we wear, there is a judgment that goes with it. If we are trying to be conservative, we are deemed “let go”, if we are dressing modernly, we are now sluts.

The only way I see any remedy to this situation is a cry for grace. Gentlemen, you have asked us that we give you grace in your journey, so I beg that you do the same. As we seek to worship the One who gave us our form, we ask that you pray for us along this journey. Instead of telling us what we should or should not wear, how about you help us work out our salvation with fear and trembling? Ladies, I think that this discussion should continue, I think that your motives should be questioned and I think that our hearts are never pure, so would you do the same? Seek to worship and honor Christ in all that you do, including what you wear.