Talking Modesty

While we were trav­el­ing, I had the time to relax with a cou­ple of good books. I will be review­ing them over the next few days and weeks.

Today, I’d like to intro­duce you to the best book I’ve read that per­tains to mod­esty from a Chris­t­ian per­spec­tive. Aptly named  More Than Rules, Bambi Moore tack­les the com­mon, and not so com­mon, ques­tions that are raised con­cern­ing Chris­t­ian modesty.

Let’s face it: few things strike a chord in women and girls like a con­ver­sa­tion about their mod­esty {or lack of it}. We get defen­sive, or smug I sup­pose. But I think mostly defensive.

So often I hear ladies say that peo­ple are judg­ing them for their attire. And this is from peo­ple on both ends of the spec­trum as well as those in the middle.

We are so insecure.

In my lim­ited expe­ri­ence, most peo­ple aren’t think­ing about you, or me, or any­one other than them­selves most of the time. It’s how we are.

But some­times, we need to have that talk, those words of coun­sel that point us in a more godly direc­tion when it comes to how we dress. I think it is an area that seems some­what con­fus­ing to many of us. That may seem odd, as I think most of us can iden­tify what *isn’t* mod­est. How­ever, it’s in the nitty gritty that we may need a bit of direc­tion. And that’s where More Than Rules comes in.

As the title hints, we aren’t talk­ing about a book that lays out the check­list of what you can wear and still be mod­est. Or what you can’t wear in order to be mod­est. You won’t get off that easy. Besides, Bambi will be the first to tell you that she isn’t your stan­dard for mod­esty. She doesn’t even give us much of a hint as to what her family’s “rules” are in this area of life.

She makes you dig a lit­tle deeper. She wants you to develop an under­stand­ing of what mod­esty is. But also what it isn’t. Some­times we can get so focused on the exter­nals that we for­get that the ori­gins of mod­esty on a per­sonal level begins in the heart. Who are you try­ing to impress? Your hus­band, your friends, the cute boy you see at church, the reflec­tion star­ing back at you, God? What moti­vates you when you pull out your clothes in the morning?

Bambi asks some hard ques­tions. She intro­duces you to some immod­est women. She dis­cusses what Chris­t­ian women ought to be adorn­ing them­selves with. And, she also dis­cusses why we need to have grace for women who don’t seem to have got­ten the memo about modesty.

I don’t know how she did it, but Bambi man­aged to dis­cuss these dif­fi­cult issues in a way that endears the reader to her and her topic. So, put your hack­les down. {In my quirky way, I first typed out shack­les. Haha. Maybe that word is just as applic­a­ble for some of us!} I highly rec­om­mend this ebook for every Chris­t­ian woman. Moth­ers and daugh­ters will be blessed to read it together. I look for­ward to read­ing this book with my daugh­ters as they grow into matu­rity. It will also make a great book for dis­cus­sion in a ladies’ group, either infor­mally or in a more for­mal set­ting. Or even one on one with a younger/older woman, what­ever the case may be in your situation.

My one com­plaint is that it is more of an Ebook rather than an eBOOK.  In other words, she left me want­ing more. I found myself engrossed in the book, read­ing parts of it aloud to my hus­band, “Lis­ten to what she says here! It’s bril­liant!” And too quickly I came to the end. Don’t get me wrong. She cov­ered so much in the book. It isn’t that I felt short­changed. It’s just that I truly enjoyed her writ­ing style, and the way she cov­ered this touchy sub­ject. I wasn’t quite done learn­ing! Although admit­tedly, I can’t think of what else she could have added.  I want to read it again to soak in some of what I may have missed in the first reading.

You can pur­chase More Than Rules from their web­site, which is linked through­out this post in the images of her book and the book title pages. {Oddly, the hyper­links aren’t ter­ri­bly clear in my posts, but just click on the title More Than Rules and it will take you to the page for order­ing.} It’s only $4.99, and avail­able in PDF or Ama­zon Kin­dle for­mat. Nook for­mat com­ing soon.

Full dis­clo­sure: I am an affil­i­ate for this fan­tas­tic book. Only because I believe it is an excel­lent book though. The links included in this post send you to my affil­i­ate page. Thank you so much!