Keep Your Shirt On

This is the second post about “Things We Taught Our Boys”.

For most people, the phrase “Keep your shirt on” would mean the same as “Be patient”. In this house, we taught our boys to literally keep their shirts on.

Modesty is a hot topic amongst groups of women/girls. Some women look at modesty as hiding your true beauty. Recently a cover model for a magazine was criticized because she wore something modest. Her critics said she should be proud of her body and willing to show it to the world to prove that she was proud of it. I, for one, thought it was a beautiful picture of a beautiful person who did not feel the need to disrobe to show her beauty.

I love hearing how so many young women (at least those I am around) embrace and practice the idea of modesty. These young women understand that their dress shows respect for themselves, for the young men they are around and for God. They have read the word of God and can easily see that He expects women to be dressed appropriately — not dressed like the crowd but dressed modestly.

Danny and I have married off 3 of our boys. We were so pleased to see that the wedding dresses they chose to wear were very modest as well as beautiful. I don’t understand why so many brides, who might otherwise dress modestly, feel the need to wear strapless, low cut, revealing wedding dresses. I’m so glad to know that the mommas who will be raising my grandchildren take modestly so seriously.

Like I said at the beginning, modesty is an ever-present topic among women/girls but what about men/boys? The Bible doesn’t have a different standard of morality for women and men. Men must be modest just as women must be modest. Because of this, we taught our boys to keep their shirts on. They do not go to the pool without their shirt on, they do not play sports without their shirt on (no shirt/skin teams around here), they do not even run around the house without their shirt on.

By teaching our boys to be modest, they have attracted and been attracted to young women who are modest. This also means that most of the young men they are around dress more modestly than most. Being around other young people who hold to the same standard of dress protects my boys and others in the group from being unduly tempted to fall into the trap of fornication.

Plus, they rarely get sunburned. I have never liked the idea of using chemicals to protect our skin from the sun. Instead, we use clothing. Isn’t it amazing how following God’s law is the best for us physically as well as mentally and spiritually.