some punctuated modesty.

Human fathers aren’t perfect, nor are they really prepared for the huge responsibilities ahead of them. I can’t even begin to imagine the gravity of the paternal role, one that entails everything from providing to withholding; rebuking and loving. We love our dads when they tell us that we rock their worlds, and we resent them when they lay down the law. That can’t be an easy job, laying down the law. But someone’s got to do it. No discipline ever feels good at the time that it’s given, yet the benefits that are reaped from proper discipline are innumerable. Granted, there are fathers who blow discipline way out of proportion, just like there are fathers who never take the time to discipline at all. While my father had the propensity to take discipline to the max (think backhands and tree branches), I will always remain indebted to him for what is perhaps the most valuable lesson that could have been imparted to any young girl trying to navigate her way through adolescence. Amidst his laments on how insufferable of a daughter I was to him, he never ceased to push me to have character over charm. “Inner beauty produces outer beauty,” he would say with his stern voice. “Don’t waste your time and money being superficial, on being pretty and dolled up–it’s the beauty of your character that matters.” These are hard words to swallow for a girl at 13, at 14, at 15 years of age, but they are words that have made an indescribable impact on my life. They have made me into who I am today.

A month ago, I took a nostalgic trip back to my old high school with my roommate. We were nearly trampled on our way into the building by towering teenagers; girls whose legs were longer than we were tall and guys whose shoulders spanned the two of us put together. My eyes widened at how much skin the girls were willing to reveal despite the 30-degree weather; each and every one of them done up so nicely that I could’ve sworn that they were all candidates for modeling schools. I would’ve given anything to look like them in the 9th grade, but my father knew better. Yesterday, I walked into the worship service at church on Sunday morning and sat down by myself in a pew. A few rows over, our church’s high school girls were knit tightly together in fashionably-clad clusters, each and every one of them gorgeous in their own way, whether or not they’d believe me if I said it. Cellphones, cameras, bomber jackets and jeans; makeup and highlights and glitter amassed – altogether they would easily be worth more than $2000. I would’ve given anything to be them in the 10th grade, but my father knew better.

My mind races backwards to a familiar place in time, when all I wanted more than anything in the world was to be beautiful and loved. I had gorgeous and well-to-do friends who were given what they wanted; friends who spent more time on their looks than they did on anything else. I was shy and so awkward, and I didn’t believe that anyone would ever think of me as beautiful. I wanted so badly to look as good as the rest of the high school population did; I started buying what my friends bought and wearing what they wore. I did my makeup just the way they did theirs and started to avoid the foods that they avoided. My definition of ‘beautiful’ was totally appearance-based. It’s no surprise then that at this time, I was furiously engaged in a war against my father. But the battles were on his home turf – where no act of disobedience was to be tolerated.

I remember the first time I tried leaving the house wearing a low-cut shirt; he ordered me to change even before my foot hit the landing at the bottom of the stairs. And the time I spent a lot of money on those (really short) shorts – he looked at me furiously before launching into another speech about my improper attire. There were also school dances from which I was forbidden (and also that one particular dance during which he stormed in to “rescue” me from and sent the principal into the gym to look for me), numerous bottles of makeup paraphernalia thrown into the trash, and bags and bags of clothing that I was never to wear again. Along with those came the threats of how I would be sorry if I ever let a boy touch me, if I ever sat in a boy’s lap; how I was never to be alone with Boy, get in a car with Boy, do this with Boy and do that with Boy… My father yelled and got scary when I wasn’t polite and when I forgot to greet my elders with the proper title (Mr. and Mrs., Auntie and Uncle). He got even scarier when I would try to sass with him (I never got very far with that). Nothing angered him more than to see me choose image over intellect, philandering over propriety; my reputation and purity meant a great deal to him not just in words or presentation but in lifestyle and attitude as well. He expected me to have honesty and integrity over coquetry and allure; he wanted me to be made out of substance and not sweet talk.

There were a lot of tears and unspoken “I-hate-you’s,” many bitter pity-me parties and moments when I felt like I was the most uncool and unlovable girl in the world. Being the only one who wasn’t allowed to wear tight shirts, short skirts, lots of jewelry and makeup – somehow made me less valuable of a girl; being the only girl who hadn’t let a boy touch her like so or do this or that with her – made me feel ashamed. But I obeyed my dad (very contemptuously at first) and tried to uphold his expectations. Though I’d secretly defy him when I was far from his scrutiny, all I found at the end of those encounters were superficiality, heart hurts and disappointment – mostly in myself and with the rest of the world.

Coming to college was perhaps what tested my integrity the most: a chance to be free, a chance to start new; rediscover and re-identify. After a few compromising mistakes during my first semester at school, I found myself desperately in need of wisdom. My dad wasn’t around to pound lectures into my head, but I knew where I would be able to find what I needed to hear. I took out my Bible – the one that had been collecting dust from the shelf in my dorm – and began to read Proverbs 31. Verse 30 alone says, “Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” I knew deep down that my dad had done his job by laying down the law for me and guarding my purity when all I allowed myself to see was what I was missing out by being modest. Suddenly, I was ashamed of the times I had scorned my dad for forcing me to change out of an outfit or put on another layer, and for fiercely correcting me when my behavior compromised my character. I was ashamed for snubbing him when he accused me of being garish and indecent. Suddenly, outward beauty didn’t weigh in as much as it used to, not with the way that I saw our world treat those who were only beautiful on the outside and not on the inside. I knew that only God would be able to give me a pure heart inside, that God and God alone assigns and takes value away.

It’s a little more than two years after that encounter with Proverbs 31 in my dorm. God has been and is still transforming every part of my heart from the inside out, and I love Him more than ever. I have since then, thanked my dad many times for the numerous times he protected a part of me that I did not value. I have also developed a hatred for the way in which our culture and our world warps the meaning of true beauty, how we tell young girls that they need to be thin to be gorgeous, to be coy and seductive and breast-baring and decked out in order to be perfect; how we tell older women that natural aging makes them ugly and that they need to inject themselves with needles in order to be beautiful forever. I have come to cherish what I didn’t use to cherish, and I’ve found that my pops was right after all – inner beauty really does produce outer beauty, in many more ways than one.

So here’s some punctuated modesty for all of you gentlemen thinking about becoming fathers one day. In no way am I urging you to interrupt your daughter’s first phone call from a boy and proceed to yell at him for 5 minutes (at least that’s what happened to me), nor am I suggesting that you rant for 3 hours about the dangers of whoredom to your future 14-year old when she comes back home wearing a tight shirt… but I am hoping that purity and integrity, honor and virtue are disciplines that you assume responsibilities over, while ensuring that your daughter never doubts for an instant that YOU, of all people, think that she is the most beautiful girl in the world. Big responsibilities indeed. But in a world that bombards our girls with mixed messages about beauty, your voice will be one of the most significant voices she’ll need to hear. Where my father stressed the purport of character, he lacked to tell me the latter. Our relationship suffered in other ways that are impertinent to this post.

And there is too much to be said to the ladies here on this note; perhaps one day down the road they will merit a blog to themselves. The Bible tells us not to cast our pearls to swine. So I’ll just ask the questions that no one else will ask: do the words that come out of your mouths reflect the kind of woman you want to be for God? Are you more concerned about loving yourself (ie: spending money on clothes and makeup, spending time with your group of friends) than you are with loving others? What parts of yourself have you given up – and what parts of yourself have you decided to save for your future husband? I will be the first to admit that my words don’t always reflect the kind of woman I want to be for God; that sometimes I get caught up in loving myself and forget to love others, that there are things I wish I would’ve saved for the person I’m going to love and live with for the rest of my life. It’s all about the choices you make. Will you choose to be fleeting and deceptive, or will you choose to be part of something that is eternal; something much more worthy to be praised?

If there was ever a lesson that I think girls our day in age needed to hear more, it’s that their worth in Jesus Christ is far more precious and valuable than any marketable beauty product or brand name, advertisement or boy will ever give them. A pure heart with its eyes turns towards God is most attractive, and true beauty is something that only God can create. The good news is, we can ask Him to create that for us – first in our hearts, and then in our lives for the whole world to see. I was blessed to have a papa who helped me see this truth – though done so in a… very unique way. If you haven’t gotten this message, this is me telling it to you now.

Just chew on it.