I suspect that most females, myself included, have uttered one of the following phrases at some point or another:

Oh I just hang out with the guys.
Or,
Pretty much all my friends are guys.
Or,
Guys are just easier.

And we say this with pride.

Now, there are some girls who grew up naturally as tomboys and didn’t ever need to tell anyone about it. They are the girls who, in elementary school, just really got into sports or grew up with brothers, or who may have felt genuinely rejected by girls. They had fun with the boys and they never thought anything of it.  But these are not the girls of which I speak.  For most of us aren’t this type of girl.

Most of us started out at the all-girls lunch table.  “Guys are easier” began when one daring girl decided to forge the great valley between her table and the boys’.  This is the girl who used to play four-square but had been closely watching the football game out on the recess field and decided it might be to her advantage to go out there and play.  She would occasionally come back to the girls and they would build up a combination of admiration and resentment for her.  As time passed, a few would follow in her footsteps. Typically, these were the more popular girls on into middle and high school. They were not the ones who only wore Nike shorts and t-shirts (the tomboys who didn’t need to tell everyone they were tomboys,) but instead, the girls who could change easily between the Nike shorts (rolled up,) and a mini-skirt.  These were the girls who could mitigate and manage crushes while still confidently trusting that if her guy-friend liked another girl or dated another girl, he would still, somehow, in the end, belong to her, and that, deep down, he secretly liked her more.  Because in the end, I’m friends with all the guys meant, for most of us, all the guys wish they could date me.

I know that many women will protest.  They will say that the efforts to bridge this gap and have un-sexual, equal relationships among all genders is completely possible and an important part of progress.  And that the real culprit for any sort of uneasiness or stress about it all is simply because of society’s incorrect reliance on gender distinctions and personal lack of control.

But I pose this question. If it’s no big deal to have guy friends, if it’s no different from having girlfriends, why do women so often take pride in it?

I would suggest that it is because, like it or not, we are no gender-neutral society and we are nowhere close to being such a society.  We are sexual and we are romantic beings.  And when we know that tons of guys are close friends with us, in more cases than not, we take pride in this because it affirms us.  It affirms our womanhood. It affirms our sexuality. And it affirms us emotionally in a way that a female friend cannot affirm us.  It doesn’t matter if we are not attracted to the guy.  It doesn’t matter if we think of him as a brother. He likely does not feel the same way, (See this video for example.)  But even if he does, he is still giving us something that a girlfriend cannot give us.  We know this because we say it ourselves.  Flippantly, and with a laugh, we acknowledge, guys are easier.  And by easier we mean that we get the benefits of a boyfriend and the benefits of a girlfriend altogether in this guy friend for whom we do not have to be a girlfriend.  We get to feel affirmed in a way that usually involves a certain type of commitment without the commitment.  (Again, I am not saying that all women in their friendships with men are like this. Some women really are “tomboys,” and some women may genuinely feel absolutely nothing different between their relationships with men and their relationships with women.  But I am speaking of the women for whom “having lots of guy friends” is something that gives us pride, and gives us pride because it gives us a certain type of affirmation.)

This may seem like not that a big of a deal – like, yeah sure my guy friends make me feel particularly good about myself, what of it?  But too often we get caught up in the idea that the only sort of infidelity or romantic hurt we can cause a person is that of the physical nature.  So we think when we have a guy friend who affirms us in this special, somewhat romantic – but not really – way, that we aren’t hurting anybody.  But with this we can potentially have the same mentality of the guy who sleeps around.  He says, we both enjoy it, and we’re not committed, so we’re not hurting anybody. But deep down, he ought to know that there is more to it than that.  He ought to know that he is taking something precious from the girl.  He ought to know that he is perhaps taking something from another guy.  He ought to know that he is taking something from himself.  Indeed, he is reducing the beauty of sexual commitment to simply an act that makes him feel good. 

Similarly, women can too often take the beauty of emotional commitment and reduce it to the momentary thrill of being desired or sexually approved of – to the momentary thrill of being a man’s sole or primary confidante.  I am not at all claiming that being the sole confidante for a man who is not family/boyfriend/husband is always wrong.  But we must be aware of its potential gravity.  In the same way that a man can be tempted to possess a woman physically for his own self esteem, a woman can fall into possessing a man emotionally for her own self esteem . . . and worse – fall into thinking there is nothing wrong with it.

And why do we do this?  Why do we use each other like this?  I believe it is because we are scared of rejection.  We may not feel approved of, and when we don’t feel approved of where we should feel approved of, we will go elsewhere in search of such approval.  Men sleep around because they cannot trust that they will get the affirmation they need as a man from their one woman.  Women insist on seeking out many close friendships with guys because they cannot trust that they will get the affirmation they need as a woman from their one man.  It is so sad.  Women have been let down so many times.  They have been cheated on.  They have been left.  And women are afraid.  So naturally, they want to ensure a backup plan. They want to ensure that they will still get the affirmation they need when they may not be getting it anymore.

But the only way we can ever stop the cycle of insecurity between men and women is if one side decides to make a change.  One side must admit the truth and admit their own fault in the matter.  For if we admit the truth, we will see how women who use men emotionally have contributed to unfaithful men (and in turn, how unfaithful men have contributed to women who use men emotionally.)  We will see how we have told men to cheat.  We say be our friend even when you have a girlfriend.  Don’t you dare get closer to your girlfriend than you are to me!  Keep hanging out with me.  Keep confiding in me.  Keep building me up.  But do we think about the girlfriend? What it would be like to be the girlfriend?  And do we think about how for a man, this emotional commitment too often inevitably turns physical, if at least in his mind?

We must recognize that as women we have so much power.  And when we use our power incorrectly, we hurt men so deeply and in turn, we hurt ourselves.  So I challenge us, let’s stop lying to men, and most importantly, to ourselves.  It’s not fair.   Our society is not gender neutral.  We are sexual. We are romantic.  And until that turns off, it’s going to be very difficult to accomplish legitimate deep and close platonic friendships between women and men (not impossible per se, but very difficult.)  I don’t have all the answers or the exact formula for all this.  I don’t know exactly where each boundary is.  But I do think that it is a boundary that needs to be talked about more seriously and more honestly.  It does us no good to pretend we are stronger than we are.  Thousands of affairs, physical or emotional, have begun between two friends who believed they were stronger than they were.

And so, if you are in a relationship, I urge you to talk about this with each other, and when you talk about it, listen closely.  Too often, we don’t listen. We don’t listen between the lines.  We don’t listen to the eyes and to the soul.  We shouldn’t be thinking about what we can get away with, but instead, about how well we can love this person.  So I urge you to think about how you would want to be loved and to love in that way.  And if you are single, do the same.  Think of every guy as someone else’s until he is your own.  And treat him the way you want any girl to treat your own guy. Because I promise you.  Guys will respond to us.  They want to.  They want to love us and to make us happy.  But we have to stop sending them so many conflicting messages.  We have to start loving them first.  And sometimes, depending on the situation, we must consider that loving them may mean not being their friend at all.

One frequent question I am asked as a newlywed is:

What are you going to do now that the wedding is over?

A reasonable question—after all, the wedding planning took a lot of time. And so a bride may wonder what she is going to spend her time on now. But that’s not all we mean when we ask this question.  We don’t want to know simply what the woman will do with her time.  We want to know what she will live for.  Behind such a question is a little bit of fear, concern, and pity that perhaps she doesn’t have as much to live for.  Indeed, this is the perennial fear we have of settling down.  That once in the happily ever after, things get boring.  Things get routine.  Things aren’t so happily ever after anymore.

And yet, even though we fear such an ending, we women aren’t very good at avoiding the fairy tale, and through the bitterest of hearts it continues to pierce.  So we fall in love, we marry, and then we brace ourselves for what we expect to be a downward spiral and a steady loss of the joy we had on our wedding day.  Why do we do this?  How is it that we could be so attracted to something and yet seemingly so disappointed by it?  And why do we keep coming back to it?

Perhaps it is because the whole process is engrained in us.  We need it.  We need the fairy tale.  But perhaps the problem is that we are more in love with the fairy tale itself than we are with the happily ever after.  Perhaps the problem is not that the happily ever after doesn’t come, but rather, that we don’t know how to properly accept it and build it and live it.

The thing is, weddings are all about hope, and women are very good at hoping.  They’re so good at it that they get drunk on it.  You can see women drunk on hope whenever you go into a bridal store, or even when you watch girls shopping for their prom dresses.  You see them drunk on hope when they plan parties.  When they wrap Christmas gifts for their children.  Hope intoxicates us.  Hope is a beautiful wonderful thing.  Hope presupposes happily-ever-after.  Hope presupposes Heaven.  And there is nothing quite as hopeful as a bride turning the corner to walk down the aisle to her groom. This presupposition lifts us to a high like nothing else.  And so naturally, when we come down from it, we may feel empty and confused.

The danger arises, though, when we allow that emptiness to frighten us and when we, in our fear, turn to fill it with something that shouldn’t be going there.  We may fill it by looking only to the past. We may fill it with enough new projects to distract ourselves.  We may fill it with our own self-indulgences.  Whatever we may fill it with, we will end up blocking out that which was supposed to come in its place.  In the process of blocking out, we become embittered and unable to see or recognize or accept the happily ever after that was intended for us.  In getting caught up so much in the joy of hope, we forget hope’s purpose.  We forget the reason we hope.  And so when love stands ready at the gates to flood into our hearts and our home, we stand closed off and turned around so that it cannot enter.  Too many times, we women get caught up in the excitement of hope and so when love is not exciting (as true and deep love usually is not,) we panic.  When the butterflies stop fluttering in our stomachs, we become sad, thinking they have left for good, when really, they lay resting because they have finally found the place to which they were flying.

A few years ago, I decided I needed to learn to love Christmas Day.  For years I had become depressed on that day for the same reason that so many women feel empty after their weddings.  Christmas had come.  The Eve had ended, and along with it, my hope.  But how silly I was!  For when my hope ended, it did so because I had found what I hoped for.  I had to relearn how to bask in the love and joy of Christmas Day.  For so long, I had been so upset about the hope ending that I missed everything else. I had to learn to love what I hoped for more than the hoping.  And it wasn’t until I could learn this that I began to fully love both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

And so it is with the bride.  A bride is full of hope.  But a wife is full of love. And although hope is exciting, love is, well, everything.  Love is the only reason hope is worth anything.  So when hope may not feel as exciting, or when we no longer have to hope, we cannot let that fact embitter us and shield us from love.  That would be a tragedy.  That is the only real way we can ruin our chances at a happily ever after.  For we determine how happy it is according to how much we choose to love.  But we can never choose to love until we learn to let our hopes be fulfilled.  It takes surrender.  It takes the willingness to be content.  It takes a willingness to be empty for a little bit in order to be filled up with something even more precious and joyous and wonderful.  But it is worth it.  After all, it is the whole reason we hoped in the first place.

So then, perhaps the answer to the question, what are you going to do now that the wedding is over, ought not be simply a list of projects or tasks but instead, 

Well, now that the wedding is over, I’m going to be a wife. And I’m going to live happily ever after.

Sometimes we may be afraid to say this.  We worry people won’t believe it. We worry that we don’t believe it.  But it can be as true as you choose to love just like a wedding can be as beautiful as you choose to hope or a home as happy as you choose to make it.  So do not be afraid.  Our hopes are not unfounded.  Love does satisfy.  Love does fulfill.  Love does save.  All we must do is allow it to.

Many of you may have seen pictures like this one floating around on Facebook or through email threads.   Often, these vintage ads are contrasted with unflattering pictures of rail-thin models or celebrities of our current generation.  There will then be some sort of caption like:

Wow. How times have changed!

The post will usually get thousands of “likes” and comments about how wrong of a turn we have taken and how right they had it back then.  There will be bashing of thin women, some quite nasty, (e.g. a woman without curves is not a REAL WOMAN) and all of it will be considered entirely appropriate.  After all, if you are thin, you must either have an eating disorder or you’re a stuck up model or celebrity who deserves the criticism anyway.

It makes sense why such feelings have developed.  Too many of us have watched our friends, our daughters, our mothers, our sisters beaten down by the pressure to be thin.  We’ve heard horror stories.  We may have even lived them.  We’ve seen beautiful women give up everything, even sometimes that which made them so beautiful, because they have been pushed into an insecurity about their weight.

When we’ve seen this happen or had it happen to us, when we know what it’s like to be told that a number defines your worth (whether through peers or through the daily assault of the media, or the subconscious push of a chemical imbalance) we naturally want to put up our defenses.  We want to do whatever we can to stop such a lie.   And so we may rejoice in ads such as these because they are the extreme opposite! And it would seem that the extreme opposite of a lie would be the truth.

The problem is, glorifying an ad like this does not end the lie.  It merely perpetuates it.

I’m sure we do it in good faith, without thinking that anyone could be offended.  After all, the idea that there might be some women out there who are thin and insecure– women who may be skinny but feel way “too skinny” and are unable to do anything about that–seems crazy!  We don’t think that a girl like the one in this ad exists.  We may not think that it’s even possible to be unable to gain weight.  And we don’t truly believe that a thin woman could feel ugly, un-feminine, or un-sexy.  So we think it’s okay to tell her that she should feel that way– okay to bash her in the hopes that that bashing might build up the women who are not skinny.  It’s the same thing that plays out with the “popular girl” in a school.  Regardless of how nice or mean she may be, regardless of how insecure or confident she may be, she is going to be bashed because people think she can handle it for the sake of the girls who are unpopular. We do this with big football teams when they play smaller teams– we root for the underdog and figure that because the other guy is not the underdog, we can boo him all we want.

But booing the other guy isn’t how you win.  It’s not how you gain your own confidence and it’s definitely not how you promote theirs.

For the past thirty or so years, skinny has been “in.”  So has being tan.  So have countless other trends and fads.  So naturally, those who are not skinny, those who are not tan, those who are not blonde or brunette or highlighted or curly-headed or rich or poor or whatever the current trend may be, are the underdog.  They start out being criticizied and put down.  Eventually, there are enough of them and enough people hear their plea that they develop a group of people who will stick up for them and defend them.  Eventually, rooting for the underdog will become standard and a trend, itself.  Now, the trend regarding weight is shifting again.  “Curvy” is becoming “in.”  Skinny, as can be seen by these Facebook postings, is out.  One day, it might circle back around just like it did a few generations ago.  In the end, these trends are silly, frivolous and should be rather irrelevant.  The reason they are relevant to us is because we are insecure.  And female insecurity is no passing trend.  It is a terrible reality.

But these sorts of ads– this “mean girls” support of the underdog will not end it.

Female insecurity will not end until we stop bashing the people on the other end of the spectrum.  We will not feel comfortable with our own weight until we are comfortable with everyone else’s.  We will not feel comfortable being brunette until we are okay with all the blondes being blonde.  And we will not feel comfortable with our own beauty until we can see the beauty in other people and be happy for it.

I don’t claim to know much about eating disorders.  But I consider myself to be fairly knowledgable about what it feels like to be a girl.  When I see someone say that whatever it is that I am is ugly or un-sexy it hurts me deeply.  I know that women are supposed to be beautiful, so when I see an ad where a girl that looks like me is called ugly, my womanhood is wounded.  I don’t feel like “a real woman.”  And we’ve all felt like this.  And when we feel like this it makes us feel better to put down someone else.

But I challenge women to be more courageous.

When I was in elementary school, I was jealous of the short girls.  I was tall, often taller than the boys, and so in class pictures, I had to stand in the back while the rest of the girls sat all cute in the front.  I know that back then I didn’t want those girls to look cute.  But I could have at least tried.  If I had tried to let go of my inner anger towards them I think I would have developed a lot more confidence and had a healthier opinion of myself.  But instead I learned the game of women.  I quickly learned how to be mean, even if only interiorly.

But the truth is, even if the game produces a quick self-esteem boost, it will not last. The insecurity will only come back all the more harshly.  And it certainly doesn’t make us any more beautiful.  In fact, when we rejoice that another woman is any less beautiful, we literally make ourselves less beautiful.  Because we taint our hearts.  And the heart is the most beautiful thing we have.

I know that some people may post such an ad to promote girls being healthy as “back then they had a better view of what was a healthy weight.”  But regardless of which generation was healthier, these ads miss the point.  They aren’t about health, just like most weight-loss ads today aren’t.

They’re about reaching the trendy number.  Playing off women’s insecurities.  Defining women by how sexy a man may find them to be.  We know women are more than numbers and more than sex appeal so let’s stop playing that game of which woman, skinny or curvy, is the “real” one.  Ideally, all women should strive for a healthy weight, but the ease of that task differs on all ends of the spectrum.  And before we can even get into what a healthy weight is, we must first discern what a healthy heart is.  A healthy heart is not jealous and a healthy heart is not vengeful.  A healthy heart takes what it is given and rejoices in the beautiful and the good, even if it is not its own. 

Women take lots of pictures. Just look at Facebook. Or go to a prom or a wedding or a homecoming. It makes me wonder sometimes—do we actually care about this event, or do we care more about the pictures? I think about the times I have regretted oh I didn’t get a picture with her! But don’t mind or regret the fact that I didn’t actually talk to her. Why is it that, for a girl, forgetting her camera can put a damper on the whole day? And why, when you look through a Facebook album, do you see the same picture of the same four girls in the same bar with the same hands-on-hips pose over and over and over again? What drives this?

Women (and all people, but particularly women) feel the need to preserve memories. This comes from a good impulse. The woman taking pictures of her baby generally does so because she sees something beautiful and good and she knows that that beautiful and good thing will change and grow into something else. She wants to forever preserve the beauty and goodness of the moment the child is in and the moment she shared with him. This can be the same impulse that drives the girl wanting a picture of her prom date who asked her out over the intercom at school. Forever that picture will remind her of how special he made her feel. Because the way she felt was good. And she may never feel that way again. So then, how could there be anything wrong with female excessive picture taking?

The problem with excessive picture taking is that it has the potential to detract so much from that wonderful moment that you actually end up missing it. And the problem with missing the moment is that well, that one should be obvious. If the moment is so worth preserving, why are we missing it? It seems rather illogical. But human beings can be illogical, and often we are illogical when we are afraid. I suggest then, that excessive picture taking is often rooted in fear. Somehow, we jump from wanting to preserve a wonderful moment because it will eventually pass to becoming entirely afraid of its passing, and thus obsessive about preserving it. Every mother knows that her child must grow up and that the way he looks as a baby will be no more except in memories and pictures. And every mother ought to want to keep those moments. But how many mothers go from wanting to keep it to absolutely dreading its passing? I wonder, is the same picture with the same four girls in the same bar every night because the moment keeps being so wonderful and so necessary to preserve even if each picture looks the same? Or is it borne out of a fear of losing whatever was found in that bar and with those friends? Is it borne out of a fear that once there are no more pictures to take in the bar, well, there will be less to live for? Maybe, says the subconscious, if I take enough pictures of it all, I will have enough to look back on when the “best days of my life” are over. Maybe, somehow, I can extend the moment so those days don’t have to end. Maybe, my picture taking will make me immortal.

Now I know that most of us aren’t thinking about immortality while taking pictures. And I would guess that most of us are honestly just having a great time and wanting to preserve that time innocently and healthily. But women (and men, I suppose) think about what drives you to take the pictures you do. I wouldn’t be surprised if for many of us (I know at times it has been for me,) it is borne out of a fear of passing moments. And why is immortality related? Well, because passing moments remind us that our life is a passing moment. When a child grows up, when a groom carries his bride up the stairs away from her fairy tale wedding, at a graduation, at a twenty-first birthday party, we may, amidst our joys and excitements, feel a sudden and unexpected pang of fear. We may not always recognize it right away, but it is the realization of our mortality. When something good ends, we are reminded that everything ends. I suggest that we often take pictures, even frantically, because we know we are going to die. And we don’t want to die.

But see, what we often forget, as we panic at the sight of our wrinkling skin and greying hair (or even simply our passing semesters or the ticking clock on a Sunday night,) is that the thing we want to preserve—goodness, beauty, relationships, the human spirit—these things are immortal. The baby’s first smile, the first day of kindergarten, the last day of high school, the ninetieth birthday party, our best friends—these things live on forever! And I don’t mean in a sappy way and I don’t mean simply that they live on in our memories or pictures (for if that were the case, well then, frantic picture taking would make perfect sense.) I mean that the thing that we loved so much about those moments is immortal. That’s a sheer fact that needs no real faith. Goodness has always been and always will be infused throughout our world. The part that needs faith is that there is a place and a time and person where that Goodness exists as one entity. That someday, all those pictures won’t be necessary because we have the Real Thing. We have all the joy and the love and the beauty that was shared in those moments in its full force. Not just snippets here and there throughout our lives. We will no longer need to preserve.

Until then, let us preserve with joy and detachment. Not with fear or anxiety or obsessiveness. Let us preserve simply because life is so good! Not because life will get worse. It is this kind of carefree preservation that allows us to relish in the good both while it is here and afterwards. It is this kind of preservation that, in so rejoicing in that which is Immortal, reminds us of our immortality. It is this type of preservation that causes the girl who forgot her camera to smile and think to herself, I don’t need to worry, I’ll see this all again someday. We don’t need to live in the moment simply because moments are passing. We live in the moment because the Goodness we find in them does not pass away. The Goodness is the immortal thing– the thing which gives us life and happiness and energy. It is the time that separates them which passes. Time is so insignificant. Time will come to an end. Time is mortal. What we long to preserve, on the other hand, will never end. So let us laugh in the face of time, for we have surpassed it. And let us enjoy those things which surpass it with us. And let us take pictures of those things. But always as a second thought, and with the knowledge that we haven’t seen anything yet.

It was an all girls school retreat in ninth grade.  We were woken up around seven in the morning to start our day.  Girls shuffled into breakfast in t-shirts and sweatpants, un-showered and un-pampered.  After sitting down one of the girls in my class who, at the time, I didn’t know that well, turned to me and said your eyes have like a natural eye liner on them.  That’s so cool!  (Of course she assumed that like the other girls, I obviously wasn’t wearing makeup under this circumstance.)  I thanked her, hesitantly, and then spent the whole morning wondering whether I should tell her the truth.

You see, ten minutes prior I had run to the bathroom to coat my eyes in that little black stick I relied on so fervently.  It went everywhere with me.  I doubt I had a wallet on that retreat.  Maybe not even a cell phone.  But I had my eyeliner.  And I would make sure no one would see me without it.

Because my eyes were tired.  Always.  No matter how much sleep I got.  No matter how healthy I was.  They were too small.  Too weak.  Dark circles.  Puffiness.  Everything you don’t want your eyes to be mine were without that eyeliner.  Later, I found out that I was applying it wrong anyway (heavy line underneath my eye, nothing on the lid) but I was sure it made a difference.  And I was sure I was unpresentable without it.

A lucky few women may be immune to such obsessions or insecurities.  They may wear no makeup and feel great, or they may wear it when they feel like it but have no insecurities about when it comes off.  But my guess is that most of us have the equivalent of what eyeliner was to me in ninth grade.  We have some sort of mask — foundation, eye shadow, a hair straightener, fake tanning lotion — something, or many things, that we become enslaved to because of what we see as an imperfection.  And all this talk of every girl is beautiful— well we hear it, we may believe it, but we still find that one imperfection to be the exception to the rule.  Yes, okay, I’m beautiful, we say, but I have to get my hair relaxed. Have you seen it when its not?  Or I know that I can be pretty without eye makeup but I have terrible acne scars and I would not be caught dead in public without covering them up. 

I’ve said these things.  We’ve all said these things.  And God bless the woman who hasn’t.  But why do we say them?

I must clarify that there seem to be two circumstances under which a woman wears makeup (or straightens her hair or curls it or does any of these things.)  The first circumstance is really awesome and is not the one that I was in in ninth grade.  This woman wears makeup because she is an artist or she appreciates art and she sees makeup as a beautiful art, which it is.  Makeup, for her, is a way to adorn a beautiful picture with a beautiful frame.  A makeup artist then, is a master framer.  And the framing he or she does is a beautiful and good thing.

But the second reason for wearing makeup comes from the opposite impulse.  From the woman who says I am not beautiful, therefore I need makeup to cover me up and change me.  We say this because we want to be perfect.  And for many women, perfection consists of being physically perfect.  We have this little drive inside us that pushes us in the age old race to be the fairest of them all.  It’s biological, it’s a shame — but it’s our tendency, some more than others.  But we are more than biology.  And we know that Snow White was beautiful primarily because of her pure heart and because she was not concerned, as the queen was, with looking in the mirror.  I don’t know if Snow White wore eyeliner, but I’m sure that if she did, she did not have the same anxiety I had when I was without it.

I wore eyeliner because I was scared that I would not be loved for the way I was made. And that’s what we all want.  To be loved.  I had a little panic after the incident in ninth grade where I started wondering if I would wear makeup around my husband (for after all, I had to wear it in front of my closest friends.)  I decided that I needed to stop my addiction before I met him so that I would feel comfortable without it around him.  A weird reason to stop wearing makeup perhaps, but thank goodness for it because it freed me.  I started to see my own beauty, and in the process became a little bit more comfortable with myself.  It wasn’t easy.  No addiction, no matter how insignificant, is easy to stop.  But it’s always worth the pain.

Makeup and the many ways we clothe ourselves can become addictions.  And if they are, we have to work to reverse that because the addiction will destroy our own self-confidence and even hide our beauty.  Because masks hide.  Makeup should be an adornment, and not a mask.  For while we may think that the mask hides the things we want it to hide, often those are the things that help complete the picture.  The frizzy hair. The birth mark.  The sleepy eyes.  And the people who are irked by the exposure of such qualities usually are only so because they wish they had the courage to expose their own.

I by all means do not want to suggest that women should stop wearing makeup.  That would be like saying we should ban gold frames so that painters who have no frames won’t feel insecure about their pictures.  But I do think that many women would benefit from sort of a makeup (or hair straightening, tanning, etc) fast.  We will never be immune to insecurities, but if we can present the things we are most insecure about to the world without shame, what confidence may arise and what beauty we may find within ourselves! It’s a struggle.  The first time you walk out in a crowd without your mask, no matter how small of a mask it may be, you will feel ugly.  And you will feel judged.  But you will learn to see your own beauty and in turn, how to properly frame it.  The coolest thing is that other people see too.  I can’t count the number of men who have said they love it when women don’t wear makeup.  I don’t think is because makeup looks bad.  Makeup can be so beautiful.  I think it’s because men like us to be confident.  They like us to be courageous in our own skin.  Not just men — everybody likes that.  We were made to be that way.  We were not made to walk by the mirror on the wall and kneel down and beg it to tell us we’re the fairest.  No.  We were made to walk by the mirror and look in it and say, without arrogance, but simply with admiration, wow, what a beautiful masterpiece.

So here’s to mascara and here’s to dresses and here’s to earrings (what wonderful things they are.)  And here’s to the way they frame the picture.  But let us do our best to never let them hide it.  Because the woman is too beautiful for hiding.

Two weeks ago I wrote on premarital virginity.

Last week I got married.

Towards the end of our wedding reception my husband and I danced along with our guests to the hip-hop song Give Me Everything Tonight, and we sang every word to each other. It seemed to capture our feelings quite well. And for the first time, we were allowed to really mean it.

But when he had carried me up the stairs (six flights!) to our secret room the song didn’t quite fit anymore. On the floor were rose petals and the theme song from Braveheart, For the Love of a Princess was playing in the background. (For those of you who do not know, this song is a beautiful, heart-wrenching bagpipe ballad played when Braveheart marries his princess in the forest. You should listen to it or watch the movie if you haven’t.) Give Me Everything Tonight suddenly seemed, well, kind of silly. I felt like a beautiful princess, not a Nicki Minaj set free, and he was a brave and handsome warrior. I’ll take you to the candy shop, and all other previously forbidden language and concepts became jokes that sure, we could now say to one another, but why would we when Braveheart finally was alone with his princess?

And why is this weird? Because lovely bagpipe melodies are not what our culture associates with sex. In our culture sex is supposed to be dirty. Desirable and necessary and fun and unavoidable, but dirty. Gone are the days where children grow up admiring the statue of David or the painting of the Birth of Venus. Children are shielded from such things. Instead, at younger and younger ages, they are introduced to Victoria’s Secret models and The Hangover. We want to hide our five year olds from any knowledge of sex whatsoever and we mourn the first time they learn of it—but once they do learn of it, we shower them in condoms and birth control pills and consider it none of our business when they want to try it out. We hate the idea of our daughters dating, but we let our sons look at porn. We now hide sex not because it is precious or sacred but because it is shameful and disgusting. It destroys innocence, it’s mischievous, but everybody ought to do it anyway. And what a confusing contradiction this is!  We can’t handle the idea of sex being something beautiful and perhaps unattainable whether for a short time or forever. We’d rather be animals, seizing it violently. We’d rather joke about it and laugh about it and flirt about it and use it than actually talk about it or admire its beauty. We treat sex like an inevitable fall. In other words, we humans have to eat from the forbidden apple, so let’s just get it over with.

My husband and I are a part of this culture and so we could not help but be influenced by it to some degree. And so once we went inside our beautiful hotel room we actually became a little sad. We both felt like children of Eden, standing at the foot of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Up until now the world had been telling us seize that apple and eat it! And we had resisted. But now, we were supposed to take it? We were supposed to do something dirty? What if we just stayed here and danced to this beautiful song and held each other? Wouldn’t that be enough? Goodness was too wonderful and too beautiful to be thrown away in pursuit of an apple.

But this is where our culture was so wrong. For when we turned around and braced ourselves to look at the tree, it was as if an angel came down and smiled, and led us back into the garden—to a time even before we met. What had been hailed as the breaker of innocence I now understood as the breaker of insecurity, bitterness, and all the many walls we build around ourselves as we grow old. The nakedness we might associate with a dark and sultry club scene can be instead the nakedness like that of cherubs. What we might think of as the end of childhood, can be only the beginning—a rebirth, together, unashamed and pure.

Sex has been deemed dirty because sin is dirty. The apple was never dirty– just the act of taking it when it wasn’t yours to take. The problem is, in our culture, we have nearly forgotten the difference between sex and sin. We have forgotten that they do not have to, and ought not go together. The prevalence of taking the apple when it’s not yours to take has muddied our conception of sex and even love. Deep down, when we steal something, we are ashamed and so we hide in dark alleys. On the contrary, when we are given something precious and sacred, we don’t hide in dark alleys. We seek the most beautiful castle for shelter in which to properly adore and adorn our gift. That’s what is so cool about marriage. You are given to. You don’t have to request give me everything because it is implicit that you will both be giving everything, freely and always. And you don’t have to be ashamed and you don’t have to lose any innocence.

My husband and I heard Candy Shop the other day and we laughed, but honestly, 50 Cent seems kind of pitiful now as he grunts out his animalistic desires to a woman he treats like an animal. Once sex became completely accessible to him to grab and seize, it lost its beauty and grandeur. It lost its humanity and became associated with dogs and cows (literal terms used in our culture to discuss sexuality.) What might be seen as the freedom to do what you want when you want becomes a stifling slavery to sin and a lonely dwelling in a dark alley.

I want to end with a quote by G.K. Chesterton. He says this in reply to the complaints about the “rules” within many religions. We hear this all the time: I love Jesus, but I don’t like how organized religion has all those rules. Why shouldn’t I be able to have sex with someone I love? Why shouldn’t I be able to… etc. Here is what Chesterton says:

Those countries in Europe which are still influenced by priests are exactly the countries where there is still singing and dancing and coloured dresses and art in the open-air. Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground. Christianity is the only frame which has preserved the pleasure of Paganism. We might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wall round the cliff’s edge they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries. But the walls were knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the centre of the island; and their song had ceased. – Orthodoxy, Chapter 9

When you enter into marriage, (really, when you enter into family, religion, or any sort of place where there are “rules”) you enter into a room surrounded by walls. But as I have learned particularly in the past two weeks, if you submit to them they are entirely the walls of a playground. And the walls of a playground are far more free and light and beautiful than the walls of a club. My husband and I will still dance to and sing Give Me Everything Tonight, but it will be with a laugh and the knowledge that Pit Bull only knows the half of it.

So what if it wasn’t just a big party? What would that mean?

What if the wedding was a death.

At first glance, that seems a horrifying concept. We don’t want it to be a death. We don’t want to lose all the things we know marriage is inclined to take from us, so in turn we lessen its seriousness. We sign pre-nuptial agreements. We try out sex before the wedding night to make sure it won’t be awkward. We get married in the courthouse to avoid all the expectations and religious connotations of a big church. If marriage involves any sort of death, well, we’d rather have the big party without the consequences.

The problem is—it’s these big parties without true substance that leave us unfulfilled. Weddings are meant to be deaths. Because it is only through completely and happily submitting to that death that we can find the true and complete beautiful new life of marriage.

How is this possible? With the wedding vow, you ensure to another human being that you will always give to them—in all circumstances—through all sufferings. You are theirs, and they are yours. And whatever love you have within you belongs to them. You share everything, your body, your heart, your mind, your thoughts, your bed, your bank account. Everything. This vow is a crazy concept. And it is so very risky. Something within you really must die—that part of you that holds back, that part of you that keeps your love safe, that part of you that makes decisions only for yourself—it must die. And how in the world can it be worth it when you don’t know for sure that the other person will keep his vow?

I would reply that you do it because it is what you were made to do. Human beings are made to love. They are made to be able to fully and completely give themselves to another. And marriage is one of the most perfect opportunities for this. I know, not because I have been married, but because I have loved. I know that when I receive love, it is perhaps the most wonderful thing in the world. But I know that if I do not give love, I am an incomplete and miserable human being. Giving love frees us from loneliness even if we do not receive it back. Because in the end, our giving attaches us to Love Himself—and He will never, ever forsake us. It is through His ever constant Gift and our own ability to imitate that that we find utter and complete salvation from our human sadness and woe. The marital vow lets us promise to daily kill our own selfishness. And that selfishness is what makes us unhappy. The marital vow, in tying us down, frees us.

And so virginity.

It is understood by many cultures that the marital vow is two-part—spiritual and physical. We are spiritual and physical beings, so we need to vow with our souls and our bodies—especially when we are going to be promising to share both. It used to be that many cultures checked to ensure that the second, bodily vow had been made. If it had not, the couple was not officially married. In our odd culture of the dichotomy of sex being dirty and sex being everywhere, we have pretended that this understanding doesn’t exist. But we know it exists. It is why we create all these subjective boundaries about sex and the right time for it. We know that sex promises something. Sex is a vow. It says, my body is yours, and yours is mine. And that vow is a part of another one. And they all come together in the concept of I give you myself. And there are few more beautiful words that a human being can ever say—and few more fulfilling.

I don’t know why human beings are so paradoxical. We want our freedom, but we can’t find that freedom until we give it up. It is hard to understand, but it is the way we are. We are meant to love. And to love fully. Our vows save us and our vows are better when they are complete. When they can be assuredly given along with the rest of us, as a holistic entity. I could go on about statistics regarding premarital sex and couples who abstain and couples who practice NFP and how divorce rates decrease with such activity. But I find that the most convincing argument for it all is that of love. And that love begs to be given freely and completely. And this is much more easily done in the context of virginity, be it saved always or saved as a renewed commitment to abstinence, and it is done most easily in the context of a vow. This vow, this free gift of love– this crazy, daring, romantic adventure– it helps us find the path to the joys of new life. And happily, gloriously, we get to walk that path together, as one, and free.

I am twenty-one-years old, engaged, recently graduated from the number one party school in the nation, but I’m saving sex for marriage.

I’m not doing this because I’m scared of STI’s or pregnancy. Neither am I doing it because I fear some sort of disapproval. My choice is contingent on one core belief. Without that belief, my choice would not make sense. I’ve saved it because I believe in marriage. The old-fashioned kind. The kind that you can’t quit on. And I think our abandonment of that concept of marriage, not just the media or the music we listen to or sexism or sex education, is the real reason for the rarity of my choice.

When I say that we abandoned that concept of marriage I don’t mean that we have stopped having weddings. We have tons of weddings. We have weddings and wedding dresses and wedding cakes and wedding TV shows. We’re still having weddings. But I don’t know how many marriages are taking place. In our culture we now believe it is everyone’s right to abandon the marital vow under some circumstance (not here referring to physically leaving in the case of danger which is a different matter and can still be entirely in line with the vow) and as long as we can abandon a vow, it is not a vow.

Now I don’t mean to discredit the reasons people have for abandoning this vow. Marriage is terrifying. There is enormous risk in promising something until death. We have all seen the risks play out and understandably so many of us have chosen the safer route. We have the celebration, the cake, the dress. We may change our last name and move in together. And we may even have kids. We accept the trappings of the vow because we think those trappings might make our intent come to fruition. Maybe if we get married we’ll stay together. But—we don’t absolutely have to.

The problem is, we need only look at the divorce rate to know that we don’t absolutely have to means there’s a good chance we won’t. A culture where half of the married people break the vow must mean we don’t fully believe in the vow. We don’t really believe in marriage anymore.

So what does this have to do with virginity?

Well, first, it means that as long as marriage is a statement of intent, the argument for premarital abstinence is extremely weak. And you hear this all the time from those who argue against it. They say things like what is the big difference between waiting until we love each other and waiting until marriage? Or how do you even know that your husband will be a virgin? He probably won’t be. Or, I’m not even sure I’m going to get married, so why would I wait? And all of these reasons make so much sense. Once we have adopted the modern concept of marriage—that it is merely another stepping-stone in affections rather than an uncompromising vow, an unbreakable unification of two people as one, and the entire reason we date—waiting until marriage doesn’t really make sense. We have lost faith in this romantic ideal of saving yourself for one person when that one person is likely to not be the only person. We don’t see why there should be an objective boundary of the wedding night when the wedding night actually isn’t as significant as we make it out to be. As long as it is just a special celebration of a statement of intent to love, it becomes fairly arbitrary. And at that point, why can’t those who love each other just as much and have made their own personal statement of intent express their love through their sexuality too? It isn’t fair that two people would have to plan a big party in order to express themselves.

But what if it wasn’t just a big party?

The problem with our modern concept of sexuality is that although we reject objective boundaries, we all deep down long for them. We even project our subjective boundaries as if they were objective. I have never encountered anyone who has absolutely no standards with regard to sex. We all have our point at which timing makes you “slutty” or timing makes you prudish. We make grand proclamations about how we would “never do it on a first date” or how we think it’s ridiculous that someone would. And always, unless we have so diminished sex that it means very little to us anymore, these boundaries have something to do with the level of commitment we have with the person. We know that sex means something and says something and gives something and therefore, it implies and requires commitment. But we seem to be in a constant battle interiorly and with each other about when that commitment is enough. When can we be free to give confidently and fully? When can we know the time is right objectively—not just based upon when we feel like it? Our feelings and desires are unpredictable and unreliable, and we long for that objective standard. That time when we can know. It just seems unreasonable in this day and age that that standard be marriage.

But I ask again, what if the marriage wasn’t just a big party?

In my next post I am going to address this question.

Wikipedia describes Pinterest as: “a pinboard-style social photo sharing website that allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections such as events, interests, hobbies and more.” You may visit the website here: www.pinterest.com.

But Pinterest is more than that. Like any social media, Pinterest is a place where people can feel a little more comfortable and safe expressing things they might not already express in person. Whether it’s online dating or blogging or chatting—it’s easier to expose the piece of yourself you’re embarrassed about, or the piece of yourself you’re scared might get rejected, if you have the screen to hide behind. And we kneel behind that screen to confess what we’re most scared to confess.

In the case of Pinterest the confession is most frequently:

I want to be a woman.

Let me explain. First of all, the overwhelming majority of Pinterest users are female.

Secondly, these female users “pin” about things that are very much in line with the “traditional” woman, not the modern progressive woman who wants to be seen as no different from a man.

You see, on Pinterest, the women who would generally speak all about their BS degree are pinning as if they’re getting their MRS degree (you might as well assume that every woman on Pinterest is engaged.) The women who swear that they will never be housewives are filling their pages with recipes and cleaning tips. The women who hate the idea of settling down have boards devoted to their dream home, picket fence included. The women who say they want to put off having children can’t seem to resist the cute little girl’s room ideas or the viral pin of the sweet suggestion for how to tell your children the truth about Santa. We say we’re liberated from the sweeping, the cooking, the diaper changing, and the marrying. But Pinterest clearly says otherwise. So what’s the deal? Why the discrepancy?

The problem is, as much as we talk about being liberated from these things, most of us can’t help but want them deep down. We’re just scared that nobody will listen to us if we do. Or that we won’t be accepted. Or we won’t be supported.

Because in the post-feminism era, women are encouraged to go out into the world and do big things to change it—but they are rarely encouraged to stay where they are and do little things to change their world in a big way. We look down on the twenty two year old who doesn’t want to get her masters or doesn’t want to get a corporate job. We look down on the newly married couple who would like to start a family. We look down on the woman who may not travel the world to feed the hungry, but feeds her friends and family with love-infused cookies. Women, nowadays, are supposed to be independent, rich, intellectual, ambitious, and restless. If they don’t happen to be these things, we act like something is wrong with them. And what do they do? Well, they either have to take the heat of being treated like an airhead, or they go on to something that doesn’t fulfill them, and we’re short another wonderful wife and mother. We’re short another beautiful home. We’re short more homemade cookies.

And isn’t this the stuff that means the most to us? The stuff of Pinterest? Our mothers taught us love. They taught us how to love. Motherhood (along with fatherhood) is the only “career choice” that keeps the human race going. The things closest to our hearts, the things that truly make the world go round—they are the things of home and hearth and Christmas and babies and unconditional love—even through the diapers and the spilled milk and the broken ornaments. We don’t want to lose the stuff of Pinterest or we would be a very empty and unhappy world.

So let’s listen to the cries in that confessional.

Sometimes it’s I want to wear pretty dresses. And I like pretty dresses better than this pants suit I have to wear to work.

Sometimes it’s I’m terrified of marriage. Every marriage I’ve ever seen has failed. And every guy I’ve ever dated has failed me and wounded me. I don’t know how to pick up the pieces. But I have this fantasy deep down that I can’t seem to get rid of. So I’m going to plan my dream wedding on here.

Let’s listen to these cries and let’s let them be heard. Mothers and fathers, encourage your daughters. Brothers, encourage your sisters. Boyfriends, fiancés, husbands, encourage your women. And women, encourage each other. Don’t be afraid that you’ll lose your worth. You’ve already got your worth. By suppressing it, you’re merely hiding it from those who would be ready and willing to recognize it (and I promise there are guys out there who would.) We all know how beautiful womanhood is. So don’t be afraid. As most fashionista women know well, there are things that are trends and there are things that are timeless. And the type of womanhood we’re talking about here is one of those timeless things. It may not be popular, but it will always be beautiful and desirable. And if we learn how to let it speak up, outside of Pinterest, we will find much fulfillment.

Bringing back the concept of the woman as sacred requires that we, women, act like she is. Because if we act like it then men will too. And lingerie companies will. And the music industry will.

The problem is many of us don’t really feel like we are sacred. We may not even believe that we are. But feelings can always be overcome. And when a fact is true, sometimes we need to merely act as if we believe it, and then the belief (and the feelings,) will follow.

Let’s start with the outside. Wear what you would wear if you truly believed you held something sacred.

Wear makeup it if you think it adorns you well, but don’t wear it as a mask to hide behind. Don’t be as concerned with the trend, or the label, or how perfectly straight you can get your hair to go. I was amazed going from a high school with uniforms to college how the majority of college girls all dress the same. And I don’t think anyone would claim it to be a very pretty outfit (nike shorts, t-shirt, leggings, tennis shoes.) And yet don’t we want to be the girl who is completely “herself”—who dresses in her own style and doesn’t need to blend? We want to be comfortable like her. We are just scared that we aren’t beautiful enough. We don’t believe we are sacred. So choose to believe it. Ask yourself what you would wear if you truly believed you were beautiful.

And then think about too, how much you would reveal, if you truly believed you were sacred. It is true that in an ideal world covering up would not be necessary, considering how beautiful and sacred the female body is. But our culture has damaged the bond between sacred and sexual, and baring all can detract attention away from the sacred. We know this, and that is why we all have a line somewhere with regard to modesty. But think about modesty in terms of what you would wear if you did not fear disapproval or rejection. What would you wear if you knew you were beautiful and did not need to draw attention to your sexuality? Sometimes we feel entitled to show off, and when we are chastised our interior response may be you’re just jealous. Besides, if nobody else covers up, who will pay us attention if we do?

But here again, we must choose to commit to the fight. And wait patiently on the men to follow. Because they will.

For deep inside every man is a jaded little boy who wished he could be a knight and wants that princess who he can protect and adorn. But we have taught him that that princess does not exist. That instead, he can have quick pleasure and excitement from the toys we make of ourselves. But if we want men to get away from the TV screen on the night of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, we have to stop watching. We must exit the race. For it is a futile one. The sexy, the shocking, even the cute—it all ends. It all fades. The only thing that remains is the sacred. And we must embrace it and protect it and demand that it be respected by others.

I want to finish with the fairy tale of Cinderella. Cinderella teaches us the most important lesson about beauty. She did not have the luxury of buying beautiful dresses (up until the Fairy Godmother arrival.) She wore rags and she spent her days cleaning and scrubbing and well, being alone. If anyone could have determined that no one found her beautiful or wanted her it would be Cinderella. But Cinderella is the fairy tale princess. Why? Because she was by far the most beautiful. She did not let anything destroy her goodness, her virtue, her must precious self. She loved as if others loved her. She wore her rags as if they were a ball-gown. She sang as if people listened. She knew that she was a princess and so she did not let anything embitter her or make her think otherwise. She made her whole self beautiful by primarily making her heart beautiful. And as we know, if the heart is beautiful, well, a bodily imperfection becomes laughably insignificant.

But then there is always the objection:

What if my Fairy Godmother never sends me the prince.

This is a loneliness that many women have to deal with and it is the reason fairy tales are blamed with giving little girls false hope. But the unspoken truth of Cinderella is that she would have remained a princess even if she had never gone to the ball. Cinderella was happy even in the midst of her loneliness. Even while no one seemed to notice her beauty. And that is the wonderful thing about womanhood. Like a lonely temple in a desert, it does not lose its beauty just because no one is admiring it. The beautiful woman is a happy woman because she is living her life like she should. And the sacred within her is the most important part of her. She nurtures it, she adorns it, and she shares it. The beautiful woman loves. And when a woman loves, her angel wings take her higher than any plastic Victoria’s Secret imitation ever could.