Modesty is about as tricky of a topic as it gets. There are many of us who grew up in the church and can easily recall the deep shame we felt when someone told us that we crossed a line. Maybe we didn’t mean to cross the line. Maybe we had no idea where the line was. Maybe we disagreed about the line. Maybe we meant to cross it, but we were still horrified to be brought so low so quickly. Whatever the heart condition, the shame was the same, and we walked away confused that our bodies could be a weapon in so many ways. It attacked us when we looked at it in the mirror, and it attacked others when we did not clothe it properly. We were confused because the world implied our body was how we earned favor, but the church implied favor was earned by how we covered it. We were frustrated because we got two opposing messages: it doesn’t matter how you look on the outside, but also it really, really does. 

I wrestled with these things as a middle and high schooler and I continued to wrestle with them as an adult, particularly when I found myself in the position of being the one expected to monitor the modesty of others. Despite the expectation, I could never bring myself to address much of anything, because I knew the wounding it would be, and I couldn’t bring myself to hurt my little sisters, knowing their insides mattered more than their hemlines.

And yet how we dress our outsides does matter, right? Who hasn’t felt the disconnect between a suggestive picture and its scriptural caption? These outer things always reveal inner things. Clothes often tell stories of our soul; the closet floor is a pretty accurate reflection of inner strife. Whatever we end up wearing or posting can feel like battle scars, the result of closet warring. We enter the world already tender from the battle, somehow exposed regardless of how we’re clothed. Many of us show off our bodies because we hate ourselves and crave approval, and yet many of us cover up our bodies for the same reason—we hate ourselves. 

By the grace of God, closets and coverings and confidence are places of deep healing for me. Somewhere along the way, it clicked that I trusted Jesus with my soul and therefore I can also trust him with my closet and my body and the way I move in them both. I’ve noticed a million times over how my relationship with the Lord impacts my view of my body, my pursuit of beauty, my understanding of what informs my worth—and what tries to grant or rob me of worth but can’t. If I wear the wrong thing, I am usually okay. This is not where the favor is earned. I am clothed in Jesus’s righteousness, most of the time I believe it, and most of the time it informs the clothes.

But how do we lead well in this conversation? How do we guide other believers through the perils of closets and clothes and confidence?

To start our efforts, some perspective: The thing that continually makes me marvel over our Creator is the fact that he could weave together billions of cells to form a human body, with all its functioning systems and abilities, and yet it also houses a soul. This is the kind of thinking that prompted David to famously exclaim in Psalm 139, “I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made!” He does not view the body as a weapon but as a wonder that leads him to worship his Creator. We can offer similar worship when we strive to behold the Lord first and then view ourselves and others.

To sustain our efforts, a guiding principle: You are not merely a body. I say it to the church, particularly to the men and older women and boys who believe a girl’s body has not been properly clothed: “Careful! You must not view her as merely a body.” Peter offers a similar warning in 1 Peter 3: “Careful! You are going to want to view her differently, but she’s your co-heir. Treat her like one.”

And yet this is also the message for the women, for the young girls, for the ones getting dressed and struggling to find a line that seems to move depending on whose looking: “Don’t forget, you are not merely a body.” In other words, dear sister, you’ll be tempted to dress like you’re merely a body, but instead, dress like you’re a body that houses a soul entrusted to you by the Soul Maker. He will empower you in the closet battle and will offer your insides a quieter beauty, one that helps you rest. And know this: even when you disappoint someone with what you wear, you’re still clothed in the righteousness of Christ. No one can take this covering. Be still, striving sister.

May we not injure a soul because we have regarded it as merely a body! May we not wrap our bodies in ways that are damaging or demeaning to souls! May we seek to glorify the Lord in every way possible, because he is lovely, because he loves us, because he doesn’t make us cover ourselves but instead makes for us a costly covering. No one can take it. Thank you, Jesus.

Helpful passages for further consideration: Genesis 3, Psalm 139, Isaiah 61, 1 Peter 3,