I want to be beautiful...

"God endows Woman with certain qualities that are essential to relationships, qualities that speak of God. She is inviting. She is vulnerable. She is tender. She embodies mercy. She is also fierce and fiercely devoted...Tender and inviting, intimate and alluring, fiercely devoted. Oh yes, our God has a passionate, romantic heart. Just look at Eve." - CAPTIVATING, by John and Stasi Eldredge

I am a woman. Beautiful, passionate, emotional, incredible, faithful, enduring, strong, tender, loving, caring, and noble. I am a woman, and am proud to be one.

It’s hard to remember how amazing the beautiful gift of femininity is, especially when it’s being rejected and crushed these days. I see messages everywhere telling me that womanhood is something to be ashamed of, but not in a straightforward manner. We’re all told to “embrace our womanhood”, but in what way are we being told? Are we seeing this as embracing our gentle, humble, beautiful spirits, or are we seeing this as getting ahead of the men, fighting for what is rightly ours?

I know that’s where I get confused! Sure, I’d like to go far in this world, be successful, see things and go places, but in the end I know that my heart is searching for something deeper than just winning a battle. The search is for beauty, my beauty, your beauty, our beauty. The thing that makes being a woman beautiful. And what is that?

I wish that I could say that I knew exactly what it is. I wish that I could tell you the secret of being a woman and what it means, but I can’t. I think that it is something that each one of us has to discover for ourselves. We have to learn to find our beauty, not by being told by some man that we’re beautiful, not by another woman telling us how pretty our makeup looks tonight, but by something MORE than that, something purer, something (pardon the use of bad grammar)...GOODer.

Only GOD can fulfill what we are yearning for. Our hearts should belong to Him first, before anyone lesser. Our modesty should crown our beauty and allow us to shine a light of purity, or grace.

Learn to know that YOU are beautiful. Because He made you in His image...what more do you need to believe it?

Because HE is wearing a NICE suit!

“The mission of women today is of crucial importance. In some way, they have the key to sanity -- the first step toward a conversion. For super-nature is based on nature, and unless we go back to a natural soundness, the sublimity of the supernatural message will be lost to most of us. Why do they have the key? Because their influence on men is enormous when they truly understand their role and mission.” - Alice von Hildebrand

Like every other high school and college girl on the planet, I rushed to the movie theater at midnight on November 20th (which also happened to be my birthday) to watch a movie about a vampire, werewolf, and human love triangle. Now, I don’t have anything against Twilight, but I do have a bone to pick with Jacob Black. Why? Because every single time Taylor Lautner took his shirt off, all I could hear were sighs of disgusting, girlish amazement at his digitalized, completely unrealistic abs.

Ok, I’ll admit...I watched the Hannah Montana movie because I thought Lucas Till was an extremely good looking sample of the male species. But when I was sitting in Twilight, it hit me. You know how girls are always complaining about how they just HATE it when the guys talk about how “hot” a movie star is? Well, have we ever stepped back to look at the fact that maybe they feel the same way about us?

Sure, I like watching some movies and stuff just because there are some good looking guys in them, but honestly, when all you can talk about among your friends is who has the best bod, then it’s gone too far. Because we have an obligation to practice a certain type of respect towards each other, and when we bring guys (or girls) down to the level of eye candy we’re certainly not looking at their souls or their personalities.

We should be setting the example for what we want to see from the guys, because otherwise it just becomes a vicious circle of offending each other over and over again. And who wants that, right?

As much as I almost hate to admit it, I think my speech coach was actually right for once. You see, he made a rule that when we’re on a tournament, we’re not allowed to comment on the physical appearance of anyone. Of course, that didn’t stop us from creating codes for that (like “Oh doesn't he have a nice suit on?” or “He is a GREAT American!”), but somehow I can’t help thinking that Mr. G does have a point.

You see, we should always strive to have the utmost respect for our fellow humans, and it can get annoying when a guy is checking you out like you’re the choice meat of the day at Dan’s Supermarket. But it’s OUR attitudes and actions that will change THEIR attitudes and actions. What are YOU going to do about it?

So say all the sappy love songs I've ever heard...

“A woman's heart should be so deeply hidden in Christ that it takes a man seeking God to find it.” - Unknown

Up until, oh maybe five minutes ago, I had no plans to write on this subject anytime soon...and then I heard the new Michael Buble song, “Haven’t Met You Yet’, and I was inspired.

Why? Because what’s the reason that we practice the virtue of modesty? So that we can remain pure, but also so that we can help our brothers in Christ remain pure. And another amazing thing that we can do, something that comes hand in hand with modesty, is to pray for “our guys”...especially one specific guy, our future husbands.

Yah, yah, I know that sounds cheesy, but the power of prayer is so incredible! And you never know who or what might be just around the corner. I love the comfort of knowing that he’s out there somewhere, and that there is something that I can do for him, even though I have no idea who he is.

“I might have to wait,

I’ll never give up.

I guess it's half timin', and the other half's luck.

Wherever you are,

Whenever it's right,

You'll come outta nowhere and into my life!

And I know that we can be so amazin',

And baby, your love is gonna change me,

And now I can see every possibility.

Somehow I know that it’ll all turn out,

You'll make me work so we can work to work it out,

And I promise you kid, I'll give so much more than I get,

I just haven't met you yet!”

I certainly don’t want anything to happen to him, and I can only pray that he doesn’t make too many mistakes (or even better, none at all). There’s a comfort in knowing that Someone knows exactly where those prayers need to go, and that He’ll make sure they get to him.

I’ve heard of women who write letters to their future husbands, and men who write letters to their future wives. I can’t help but wonder sometimes how beautiful it must be to exchange those as you exchange your wedding vows. Not only that, but just knowing that there was someone out there who cared about you that much before they even met you? Wow! Seriously, tell me how that’s not absolutely crazily romantic and sexy?

Even though I know that nobody is perfect, I like to follow that up with the ridiculously cheesy line “there’s still someone who’s perfect for me”. Yet, I know that the most important thing is to keep my sights focused on the person who IS perfect...God. Like the quote from the beginning of this post, the best thing that any woman will ever do is to make God her number one. Because once that happens, the man who has to find her in Him will be well worth every moment of waiting. What could be better?

So, lose yourself in God, let Him be your guide, and He’ll bring you to where you need to be. And no matter what happens, you’ll always have the most amazing Man ever in your life!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

“Modesty is a reflex, arising naturally to help a woman protect her hopes and guide their fulfillment – specifically this hope for one man. Of course, along with this hope comes a certain vulnerability, because every time a man fails to stick by us, our hopes are, in a sense, dashed. This is where modesty fits in. For modesty armed this special vulnerability – not to oppress women, but with the aim of putting them on equal footing with men.” - Wendy Shalit, “A Return to Modesty”

You’re getting ready for your first date with this amazing guy who you haven’t known for long, but you just KNOW that he’s going to treat you right. You’re all primped up and waiting for him to come knock on your door, and then it happens. Your worst nightmare. He honks his horn at you from your driveway...

Ouch! Life’s tough sometimes, and it doesn’t always quite meet our expectations. Does that mean that we shouldn’t have those expectations in the first place though, or does it mean that something else is just not right?

When you were a kid, how often were you told by your dad or some other mentor that you should ALWAYS make guys treat you like a princess? I know my dad told me that, and still tells me that, all the time. He even took me out for my “first date” on my sixteenth birthday and at the end of the night explained to me that I should expect nothing less than how he treated me from any other guy. Thanks Daddy!

Yet, the older I get, the more I wonder...how many guys out there actually know how to treat a girl like a princess? I mean, holding car doors open and pulling a chair out for a gal is so old fashioned these days, no one does that stuff anymore, right? But wow, I sure wish it wasn’t. Even though it feels like I’ll never get that kind of treatment, I still expect it and I still want it. I think it’s a desire that’s in every woman’s heart (and guys would be smart to know, and listen, to that).

I love that song by JoJo, you know, the one with the lyrics that go “if you want me so much, then I have to know are you thoughtful and kind, do you care what’s on my mind. Or am I just for show? You’ll go far in this world if you know how to touch a girl.” It reminds me that the desire to treated like a lady isn’t old fashioned, that it still matters. Because if you know how to treat a girl, you’ll be able to win her over completely, and that’s saying a lot!

Why is it so important though, that we hold on to these expectations? Well, I don’t know if my answer is completely THE answer, but I’ll definitely take a shot at explaining why. To me, I know that it is important that I can feel loved, but how do I measure love? When someone is willing to go out of their way to take care of me, remind me that they’re looking out for me, that they’re thinking about me...that’s when I know that they really love me. Because of this, I feel that it’s extremely important that outward expressions of care and affection are shown, but I also think that these expressions should be ones of respect.

Respect...and THAT is what is boils down to. A woman wants to respect herself. When someone else, especially a guy, shows her that he respects her, it is then that she starts to truly be able to respect herself.

In every girl’s heart is the deep and powerful longing to be cared for, to be loved, to be respected, and to be treated like a REAL princess. So is chivalry dead? I don’t know...guys, why don’t you tell me? Or even better: PROVE IT!

Silence CAN be golden!

“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.” - C.S. Lewis

Is love easy? Wow, isn’t that a question for the record books!? I could say so many things about it, but no matter what I said, those words would never describe it’s true meaning or what it can be. Love is the absolute hardest thing that anyone can feel, yet the most amazingly simple thing. It is painful, full of hardships and sacrifice, it hurts a lot; yet somehow it manages to be the most satisfying and thrilling thing that any two persons will ever experience. And how is this so? Because it is LOVE, and that is what everyone longs for.

Why are we so willing to risk the heartbreak and the pain for something we’re sometimes not even sure about ourselves? It’s because we’re seeking something greater and more beyond what we could ever possibly imagine. Love is the fulfillment of everything that we are, what we want to be, what we do and what we believe. Because of this, we’re willing to risk everything that we have in order to give and receive it. But sometimes, we can let our hearts get carried away and fall too hard, too fast. This is where something called “emotional modesty” comes in.

Emotional modesty is something that I didn’t even know existed until about a year ago. I kinda had an idea about it, but I didn’t actually know that there was a name for it, or that it was just as important as physical modesty. I learned about the basics of emotional modesty when I took a class on the Theology of the Body, and then I was able to put a name to it during a Q&A session this past summer.

It’s actually one of the most useful things I’ve ever heard of. It banks off of the idea of Proverbs 4:23, “With closest custody, guard your heart; for in it are the sources of life.” All of us, men and women alike, need to learn how to protect ourselves from falling for “that special someone” overnight. Love at first sight? I don’t quite agree with that. Sure, infatuation can happen in an instant, but are you willing to believe that a man can look at a woman (or vice versa) and instantly be willing to sacrifice his entire life for someone he doesn’t know? Now THAT would be impressive!

See the thing with emotional modesty is that it’s meant to help us, so that we don’t get our hearts broken every week. Do you remember that first crush you had in middle school or junior high? You would always bump into your crush and try to find little excuses to go near or look at him. But at one point, you suddenly realized that he didn’t like you back, and boy, did that hurt! But it wasn’t so bad, because you were little and you recovered quickly. But as you get older, it gets harder to recover quickly, and you’re heart starts to invest too deeply to take everything back so easily. And that’s when we open ourselves up for heartbreak.

The most crucial thing to remember about protecting your heart is that you don’t have to share every little thing about yourself with someone. There’s a difference in sharing everything with your bestie, but when you start opening your heart up and sharing more than your life story with a guy (or girl, if you’re a guy reading this), even if you’re dating, it gets dangerous. You’re investing yourselves in each other emotionally, and too much self-disclosure can hurt a relationship that’s in the beginning stages.

Mother Teresa said, “I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only love.” We want to love each other until it hurts, but we DON’T want to hurt ourselves so that we can’t love.

P.S. I think I love you

“You have made me, Oh God, to live forever in Your love...my heart is restless, until it finds rest in You.” - St. Augustine

Ok, so up to this point I’ve kinda shared some insights about little things here and there that have to do with modesty. But tonight, as I sat here trying to figure out what to write about this week, I realized that one thing I haven’t shared yet is the biggest reason why I am so passionate about it! So here goes...bring on the fire, this post is gonna get a little more personal.

I am, by nature, an extremely intense person. You can get me pretty fired up about a subject, but I’m also one of those people who refuses to stop just at the tip of the iceberg...I have to go all the way. And in all the different life experiences that I’ve been blessed (and not so blessed) with, I have discovered a very deep and powerful desire to love in an extreme way...so I do! In fact, the basic principle of ethics states that all men desire happiness. The way that I find myself searching for this happiness is in, through, and by loving people.

I have a confession to make. I’ve never had some deep relationship that opened my eyes on how to love another human being with everything I have, exclusively. Actually, in high school, I thought that there was something wrong with me because of that. I thought that the way to discover how to love was by “getting a boyfriend”. And I’m not gonna lie, right after senior year of high school and into the beginning of freshman year of college, I got one...but I found that I couldn’t pour all of my intensity into loving him, it didn’t work. So we broke up, I moped for a little bit, and life went on.

A few months after that, I was reading through some papers from Fr. Shea’s senior religion class, and my eyes focused on a poem written the notes, a beautiful piece from St. Augustine’s Confessions:

Late have I loved You, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new...late have I loved You!

You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for You.

In my unloveliness, I plunged into the lovely things which You created.

You were with me, but I was not with You.

Created things kept me from You; yet if they had not been in You they would have not been at all.

And so You called, You shouted, and You broke through my deafness.

You flashed, You shone, and You dispelled my blindness.

You breathed Your fragrance on me...I drew in breath and now I pant for You.

I have tasted You...now I hunger and thirst for more.

You touched me...and I burned for Your peace.

It was in that moment, that I suddenly learned how to love, and Who to love. It’s still something I’ve never actually felt...yah that’s right, I’ve never actually felt that warm, fuzzy feeling that love (or is it really just infatuation?) is supposedly known for, and yet for some reason I know that I love, and I know that I’m crazy enough to do absolutely anything and everything for Him. And you know why? Because I know that I have the capacity to love, and in this capacity to love, is an intense longing to help everyone love the way that I do! Who cares what they think about me, as long as I’m giving of myself entirely in an abandonment to love, nothing and no one can shake me.

So I’m extreme, crazy, and intense in every sense of those words. If you knew some of the things that I do in the name of that intense love I have, it would blow your mind. Maybe I’ll tell you sometime, maybe I won’t. It depends on how I feel about it. But for the record, I’m writing this because I care, because I’m passionate about it, because I LOVE YOU! Enter: Modesty...

Can I, may I, have this dance?

“Every little girl knows about love. It is only her capacity to suffer because of it that increases.” - Francoise Sagan

Imagine being six again. You’re a little girl, or a little boy. Ever experience is new and exciting, and life is just beginning for you. Nothing you want to do is impossible to fathom, and everything that you dream is possible. Insects, flowers, twigs, and dirt are the best toys that you could possibly ever imagine, and you are too innocent to realize the heartache that it will cause Mom when you come back to the house covered head to toe in mud!

We were all young and innocent at one point in our lives. I know when I was a little girl I absolutely loved dressing up in fancy, way-to-big-on-me dresses and dancing around the house. Then, in true six year old fashion, I’d go outside and jump around enough that the dress would be covered in dirt. I’d give almost anything to go back to those carefree days when heartbreak was impossible and the most hurt I encountered amounted to scraped and bruised knees.

These days, it’s so much easier to get hurt. Knees aren’t the only things that get cuts and bruises anymore, hearts do too. And heartbreak isn’t nearly as easy to clean up as a scraped knee is. A woman, the same one who once was a little girl pretending to be a princess, is now pretending to be other things. She doesn’t dance because it’s fun anymore, she dances to feel more secure about herself. She doesn’t dress up so that she can feel beautiful anymore, she dresses up so that she can feel beautiful when someone else tells her that she is...even when that someone else really doesn’t mean it. Sure, she’s a grown up, but deep down inside, I’ll bet that more than anything, she wishes that she was a kid again. All she wants to do, is be a princess.

Girls, let yourself be that princess, because you ARE one! Don’t let yourselves be bogged down by the world’s expectations, but be beautiful because you ARE beautiful, not because you have to be. Dressing modestly begins with the heart.