PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 11 – Facing Modesty Head On!
Episode 11: Facing Modesty Head On!
FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell
Rocky: Welcome to the podcast, FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy: Hello ladies! What a joy it is to come into your home again. I love to just join with you in your home and hope you can share in a little bit of what is happening in our home. Today, I'm going to welcome into our podcast, Meadow Campbell.
Meadow: Hall.
Nancy: Whoa, that's right! Meadow is now married. In fact, she wasn't even . . .
Meadow: Campbell wasn't even my maiden name.
Nancy: You weren't even Meadow Campbell, you were Meadow Barrett. Can you believe it, ladies? I still call my daughters . . . I'll call up on the phone. Call Serene Campbell. Oh, that's right, Serene Allison. Call Evangeline Campbell. Oh, I mean Evangeline Johnson. It's amazing how it's so hard to get used to the new name even after all these years.
Well, many of you know Meadow as Pearl's oldest daughter. Pearl of Serene and Pearl, Trim Healthy Mama, and Meadow herself is also involved in social media with Trim Healthy Mama and is now married. Of course, she has a new name, Meadow Hall. She is married to the most wonderful guy, Kendall. We all love him, and they now have this most precious, gorgeous little baby boy, Warren Charles. He's just doing so well. And Meadow is the most beautiful mother. You're enjoying it, Meadow?
Meadow: Oh yes. I love motherhood so much. It really turns your life upside down, but there's nothing more fulfilling. It really teaches you how to become more Christ-like and selfless, I think. I really have to give up other parts of me, but there's nothing more fulfilling. It’s so worth it.
Nancy: I think that is so true. In fact, I don't think that we learn to do it all at once. I think, as I look back on my mothering, that I learned to do it little by little. I do think that my daughters and my beautiful granddaughters have an advantage in that they've been surrounded with the joy and the love and the promotion of motherhood, and I think that helps toward embracing motherhood. When I came into motherhood, I didn't have that around me. I had to find out for myself, and I remember it took time to just lay down my life. In fact, with every baby, I learned to lay down more.
I remember when Serene arrived, my sixth baby, and I think I mothered her more totally, more completely than even all my other babies. Even though I just totally adored and loved every one of them, I had learned to give more of myself. I think motherhood does take time. It takes time to learn to give of yourself, and, in that, we find ourselves. That's the wonderful thing.
I'm such a great believer in the Word of God of course. But that Scripture in Mark 8:35 where Jesus said: “He that will save his life will lose it, but he that will lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall find it.” Now, those are the words of Jesus. Therefore, they are eternal words. They are an eternal principle and they cannot be denied. They work. When we try to save our lives, pamper our lives, and try to make everything work around us, we lose. But when we come to that place of laying down our lives, losing our lives for the sake of others, for the sake of my baby, for the sake of my family, and as we lose our lives, we find an amazing thing happens. We find our lives. We find life. And so many women think, oh, you know, I want to find my life. Well, you don't find your life by finding your life, you find your life by losing your life. It's an eternal principle. And you're finding that too, Meadow?
Meadow: Oh yes, that's so good, Nana. That reminds me of . . . remember that baby shower that you held for Kendall and me? And it was so amazing. Instead of just a ladies baby shower, we had couples come, so we had mothers and fathers there, and we had parents speak to Kendall and I and give us marriage advice. And one of the things that really stuck out to me was when my mom was talking to us, she was saying that when she had me, she was like, Whoa, there's no more me anymore because she had to give up all her time. But then she realized, this is me. And I remembered that. And now that I take care of my baby, I realized this is me. This is my most important job. This is who I am now. I'm a mother.
Nancy: Yes. Oh, I think that's another wonderful revelation. You are so blessed, Meadow, to have caught that revelation now, in the beginning of your motherhood . . . that as a mother, that's who I am. I'm me. I'm a mother. That's who God created us to be. And it is a sad thing that so many women are frustrated. They're trying to be everything else than who God created them to be, a mother.
Meadow: I feel the same way, Nana. And I just feel so saddened that so many women, of my generation especially, they feel like they need to wait a few years. Wait maybe five or ten years before they settle down and have children because they have to be successful first, as if being a mother is not successful, as if it's not the most important job. My desire is to show these other women, with how I mother and how I live my life, how important this is and how this is my most important job. Why would I want to go chase other things? Because that doesn't make me more important.
Nancy: That's so true. Meadow has a real burden to reach those of her generation, and I think that's so wonderful. I hope we have all mothers listening today. Older mothers, oh, I really trust, dear older mothers, that you are still interested in motherhood. Can I share something that's burdening me at the moment? In fact, it burdens me every time a new Above Rubies goes out. By the way, have you got your new magazine? It's all out in the nation now.
When a new magazine goes out, we have changes of addresses and cancellations. One of the things that saddens me more than anything else is when older mothers write to me and say, “Thank you Nancy for all these years of blessing me with Above Rubies, but my children have grown now. I'm in a new season, so I don't need any more magazines.” And my heart wants to cry because, dear precious mothers, we never change from being a mother.
When our children grow, that's not the end of our mothering. In fact, it is the launching into a greater realm of motherhood. It is a launching into a calling that God has mandated in His word for the older mothers to teach and encourage the younger mothers. And I think, what are these older mothers doing? “Okay, I'm finished with that, thank you.” Well, are they doing anything to encourage the new generation? What about their own daughters and daughters-in-law? They need Above Rubies for them.
And like in any profession, you have to have refresher courses. I do believe that we as older mothers need refresher courses. We need to come back to the Word. In fact, I, as an older mother now of not only grandchildren but great grandchildren, am still in the Word saying, “Oh God, please show me more understanding and revelation of your heart for women, for mothers, for wives. I want to know the fullness of Your plan and purpose because I have this responsibility to teach the younger mothers.”
I hope precious older mothers are getting a little refresher each time we do a podcast, so you can be life and water and encouragement to the young mothers of this coming generation. I hope all the middling mothers in the midst of raising your families are listening. And the young mothers, like Meadow.
Now, Meadow, I know you have many burning convictions on your heart, about many things our young mothers face in this generation. Tell me about something. What do you want to share about?
Meadow: Well, something that really grieves my heart about a lot of women in my generation is that we no longer value this virtue, that everyone used to value more, and that's modesty. I believe modesty is a dying virtue in our culture and especially, it seems, that women of my generation just want to completely disregard it.
Nancy: Sadly, Meadow, I have noticed that that's not only in the secular world. I am noticing it in the so-called Christian world.
Meadow: Yes, it's true. I have noticed that modesty has been a very big debate among Christians for a long time, and I don't like it as something that we argue and quarrel about all the time. I believe that it is important because basically it all comes down to respect. It's respecting other people. Basically, what women are arguing about these days is that I should wear whatever I want and whatever I feel like because if this bothers men or if this causes men to stumble, that's their problem, and they should not lust, and they should just look away.
Nancy: It doesn't sound like, “Am I my brother's keeper?”
Meadow: No, because the Bible actually says, well, first of all, it says to let the women dress modestly and that means that we are supposed to dress in a way that is respectful and considerate to others in our culture. It also says that we are not to become a stumbling block to the weak. "Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak" (1 Corinthians 8:9). So let's just say that an alcoholic was offering alcohol. I mean, someone was offering alcohol to an alcoholic and that alcoholic became drunk again, and he stumbled back into his sin. Well, he would be guilty of his sin, but the person offering him alcohol is still guilty because he presented a stumbling block. Well, the same rule applies to modesty. Like someone can be guilty for choosing to lust, but another one, the person who purposely created themselves to be stumbling block, can still be guilty for that too.
Nancy: Yes. I think it's something that we have to really face in this hour in which we live. In fact, I think of a story, Meadow, of when we lived back on the Gold Coast of Australia and where your mother spent all her teen years. The Gold coast of Australia is perhaps a playground. It's a place of beautiful weather and beach and surf and sand. We spent 10 years there, beginning and growing a church. It was a challenging place to live, and it was very fleshly, and people wore hardly anything.
In fact, our church was on the right, there it was, and then on the left was the Pacific Ocean and that's where we baptized people. We used to say we had the biggest baptismal pool in the world. But to go down to that baptismal pool, oh my, you'd have to have blinkers on your eyes to pass topless bathers. Then on the right-hand side of our church was Jupiter's casino, so we were in the middle of the devil's playground.
We were always very hospitable and every Sunday we invited people home to our home for a meal. Often, we'd have 30 or 40 people around a dinner table or different tables because my husband and I would invite people and then our children would invite people, and we just filled the place.
One time, I saw a stranger and got talking to her and found she was from the States. So, I said to her, “Come on home, come and have some fellowship.” She was staying at the casino, and her parents had paid for all the family to come and have a big reunion, and they were staying in Jupiter's casino. She was so glad to come and get some Christian fellowship. She enjoyed it, and I said, “Come back next Sunday.” However, during the week, I got a call. “Nancy, sorry, I'm just calling to say that I won't be coming home to dinner this Sunday.” She said, “I'm leaving.”
“Leaving? I replied. “Yes,” she said, “I cannot stay in this place any longer. You see, I come from the south.” Well, I didn't know what she was talking about. I had no idea. Anyway, okay. She's going home. It wasn't until a few years later that we came to the south, to Nashville, to the “Buckle on the Bible belt.”
We came from the fleshly place of the Gold Coast of Australia where people were hardly clothed, and all of a sudden, my eyes met a different sight. Oh wow. People are clothed, and I couldn't believe how, although we hated that kind of lifestyle, it's amazing how you could even get used to living in it. This lady was just there for awhile, and she couldn't take it. She had to get out of it. The sad thing is that we came to the states in 1991 and back then, it was conservative in the church, very conservative and everybody was fully clothed. It was wonderful. It was amazing. We could hardly believe that we were living in such a place. Oh, it was so incredible.
Now, all these years later, goodness me, that is about 27 years later, it is not like that anymore in the church, even in Nashville, in the “Buckle on the Bible belt.” You can go to a church, and you see cleavage, and women are showing so much of themselves, and this is in the church! What has happened?
Meadow: Well, part of it is the change of fashion, and modesty changes with the culture, but that doesn't always mean just because other people are wearing this, I should too. Even though the Bible says that modesty is important, it does say that, it's in there, I know that some people can take this to a very extreme where it becomes legalism. I've known people who have come from a background where they came from a very legalistic family, and they always had to wear shirts to their collar bone or skirts to their toes, and it was like a religion. It wasn't just about respect at that point. It became pride.
The thing is, modesty isn't just about the clothes you're wearing. It's a matter of the heart. If you're not making it a heart issue, you can become one extreme or the other. You can either become super legalistic and judgy and trying to go over the top and trying to draw attention to yourself for the wrong reason, for a self-righteous reason. Or you could go to the other extreme where you dress like the world, and you make yourself a stumbling block, and you don't represent Christ because God says, in everything we do, do it for the glory of God. So that should even account for the way that we dress.
Nancy: I think everything is a heart issue, isn't it? Self-righteousness stinks, and it must be the heart. At the same time, I do believe that when something is a heart issue, it reveals itself on the outside. It reveals how we dress. We're not going to become legalistic and wear long sacks and look so boring and horrible. Because, you know, Meadow, I love that Scripture back when God is telling them how to build the tabernacle and all the furniture.
Then He goes onto a chapter about the clothing of the priests and the clothing of the high priest. I always love the Scripture where God says that He is going to clothe the high priest. These are the words he uses: “For glory and for beauty” (Exodus 28:2). God loves glorious clothes. God loves beautiful clothes because he is a God who loves beauty and color. He created beauty. Just look at some of the animals and birds and the color and the glory of them. It's amazing. The high priests clothing, it was amazing. The breast plate had twelve different sparkling, amazing jewels. On the ephod, there were also 12 beautiful onyx stones, and it was full of purple and scarlet and glory and everything. In dressing modestly, we also dress beautifully and for the glory of God.
Meadow: Oh yes, I agree with that. This is coming from someone who has always loved fashion. I love fashion, and I love to wear dresses. Rashida and I, when we were younger, would draw pictures of all these dresses and our designs and fashion, and we just loved it. I'm not saying that if you're going to be modest, you need to be boring and frumpy and never in fashion. You can still be in fashion and wear beautiful and cute clothes, but you can do it in a way that's still respectful.
Nancy: Yes, and covered. I do believe that that is very important. In fact, it's interesting, Meadow, that you should be talking about this. Some time ago, I was into the Word and came across a Scripture, and this is how I read the Word. Some people say, “What do you do? Do you read so many chapters a day, or what do you do?” Well, I have to confess, No, I don't keep to so many chapters a day. There was a time when I used to try and read the Word through every six months. I don't do that now because there's too much in it to go too quickly, so I read until I see something that grabs me, and then I pour into it. Recently, I was reading in Genesis about when Adam and Eve had sinned, and of course, they were naked at that time. Then what happened? I then went into this amazing study, and I began to look up all the Hebrew words and then all the Greek words for clothing. Oh my, I was just amazed. Could I have time for a moment to just tell about the beginning?
Meadow: Oh yes, I'd love to know.
Nancy: Yes, just the very beginning. Well, we know that at the very beginning, when Adam and eve sinned, that in Genesis 3:7 it says: "And the eyes of both were opened, and they knew they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons." Now, they did pretty good. “Aprons” is a word that means “to gird yourself around.” They obviously girded their loins, their reproductive area, and they put these leaves around them to cover them. They knew that somehow they had to cover that. That was man's way of doing it, but it wasn't God's way. Because then we move over in the story and we know of how God came and how he spoke to them.
Then what did God do? He did something more than just make aprons. In Genesis 3:21 it says: "Unto Adam also and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them." We have two different words there for clothing. These are the very first words that God uses for clothing. Now, in studying the Scriptures, there was a very important law to remember and that is the law of the first mention. Whenever God speaks of something the first time, He is laying a foundation down for that subject. He will add to it, and it will grow more in the Word of God as we read more. This is the foundation from which He never ever deviates. God never deviates from that law of the first mention.
He made them these garments. Now, they were skins. It's interesting that men did it with just putting some leaves around themselves, but God's covering had to come through the shedding of blood. It's only the shedding of blood that can cover our sin, so God had to shed animals. It was the first time that they had been killed and blood was shed so that He could take the skins to make these garments. They had to be covered with the blood of Jesus.
Then it goes on to talk about these coats. Now, let's see, what was the word coat? Let me see if I've got it here. Yes. This “coats” is a word that means “to cover.” That's the first meaning, “to cover, a skirt, a coat, a garment, a robe.” Then it goes on. Oh yes. Let me have a look here. Yes, because that's not all of it. When we look into a Hebrew word, we've got to look into the complete root, and the root of that word means “the shoulder, the upper end of the arm, the place from where the garments hang.” In other words, the garment that God made, it came from the shoulder. Now that's very interesting. God, of course, was the very first clothes designer. Isn't that amazing?
Meadow: I never thought of it that way.
Nancy: God is a clothes designer. He was the first designer of clothes. Now, these clothes were made from skins, but have you ever seen pictures, and you see them going out of the garden with skins around their back? Oh, goodness me. I don't believe it at all. Do you think God, who all His works are perfect, the great Creator of the universe; do you think He had just put some skins around their back? No. He would have made the most glorious garments. I don't think there's ever been any leather garments like these garments that were made. They would have been incredible. They would have been amazing. We can't even imagine what they would have been like. When God designs clothes, when He designed the clothes for the high priests, there was nothing more glorious and beautiful. I'm sure He made these first clothes that Adam and Eve were to ever wear, the most beautiful clothes that you could ever imagine. He clothed them, but they actually came from the shoulder. Very interesting because that is the Hebrew word.
Now, that just makes me think about something that we're all so used to. I want, I know you've got lots to say {Meadow}, but I'd just love to share this bit. It's something that we're all used to in our day and that is wedding dresses. Most wedding dresses today are strapless wedding dresses. They just come over the bust, or if they do, most of them don't. They're hanging off and showing so much, which is so sad. Because they’re so much the norm, that's all you’ve got, and it's so hard. If you want to find something that is a little more conservative, wow, you've got to really hunt. You go to a wedding shop, and they are all like this, so this is what everybody buys.
The bride, she comes to her bridegroom, she walks down the aisle, bare shoulders, half her breast showing, to her husband? And to everybody who has come to see her get married. A bride is meant to come to her husband clothed. The bridegroom—it’s his glory, it’s his privilege, it’s his intoxication to unclothe his wife and see who she is. This is for her husband. It's for him. It's the same even in our marriage. We go to the bedroom and that's where we can unclothe.
Clothing is to hide. The next Hebrew word that I looked at means “to hide, to conceal.” We clothe ourselves to conceal these beautiful, special parts that are so glorious to our husband, but they are not for the world.
Meadow: That is so good, Nana, because I've been wanting to say that. Since I've been married, modesty has become even more important to me now than it was when I was single. I grew up in a conservative family, and it was still important to me back then, but it didn't become so clear to me.
When you're married, and you realize how intimate our bodies are and the purpose that God had them for, to be celebrated in marriage and in the marriage bed, why would you want to share that with the world when it's something so personal between two people? The world wants to take away something that is so special and so personal for two people, and they want to make that normal and expose it to everyone else. Everyone is trying to normalize our body parts which are supposed to be private between a man and a wife. That's why I feel some young girls, who are still single and who haven't been married yet, don't get it. I wish I could explain to them--your body is for your future husband, and all those other men that you're exposing your body to, they're someone else's future husband, and they don't need to be seeing your body.
Nancy: Yes, and they're spoiling it for other men, and spoiling it for themselves.
Meadow: Yes, what it really comes down to is the golden rule. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” If I wouldn't want someone, this girl, to wear a very provocative outfit in front of my husband, why would I want to do that in front of someone else's husband?
Nancy: Oh, exactly. Yes.
Meadow: It's all about respect. One of the things that people talk about when they talk about modesty, they say that modesty is all about respecting yourself, but Jesus doesn't command us to just respect ourselves. He commands us to consider others. It should really be about considering other people before ourselves. We should be considering our spouse and considering all of the other people who might stumble because of the way we dress.
Nancy: Yes. I often wonder when women come out and they're exposing themselves, you know, not fully, but with cleavage and bare shoulders, even going into church like that, I'm wondering, where are their husbands? What kind of a husband do they have that will allow them to go out like that? Oh goodness me. No, I would never want to, but my husband wouldn't let me out the door. I mean, because he treasures me. A husband is to protect his wife. I think men have just gotten so used to this. They also no longer know what is right. They are missing out. Both are missing so much.
Meadow: Yes. My husband has told me that he is so happy that I am a modest person and that I saved my body for him because it's something special to him, and it's something that's only for him. If I was revealing my body to other men all the time, it wouldn't be special to him anymore.
Nancy: Exactly. Can I say one other thing that's really on my heart too? That is social media, Facebook, Instagram, and people post pictures. Sadly, often I see pictures that are very exposed. Now, on my personal Facebook, I just have family and friends I know well. My Above Rubies Facebook I have over 100,000 people, and I don't even know who they are. On my personal Facebook I'm not having any Tom, Dick, or Harry's, so I'm not even hopefully ever going to see porn or anything like that because I keep it very private.
Oh goodness, my heart is grieving because, even in that little realm, there are times when I see posts that are revealing. What I notice even more, Meadow, is that then I see people who I know who like it, oh, that just grieves me! They like it! What?! They like that exposure. They are then showing to the world, oh, this is what I like. We're exposing who we are when we like stuff like that.
Meadow: They are approving of it, so they are encouraging it.
Nancy: When we see something like that, even if it's our dearest friend, we cannot like it. We cannot stand with it. In fact, I saw a picture recently. It was so exposed. I wanted to get down on the ground with “dust, with sackcloth and ashes.” In fact, it's still grieving me that I still have it on my heart to go out and find some sacks and get out into the woods and intercede about it because it so grieved me. It's so exposed, and it was exposed on social media. How can a woman do that? This is how far we've come. But anyway, our time has gone, Meadow.
Meadow: Can I just say on more thing?
Nancy: Yes, yes please do.
Meadow: I know modesty is an important topic to me, but I don't want everyone to believe that I am pretending I'm the perfect example because I'm not. Even though we can all agree, even if we all agree that modesty is important, some people might have different definitions of what that looks like. I have not always been perfect in this area, and my heart, at times, has not always been in the right place too. I, at least, value this virtue and that is what I'm saying, that I want my heart to be in the right place so that I am trying to be respectful in the way I dress. What I am saying is that even if we don't all agree on exactly what it looks like, we should all agree that it's important to dress in a way that glorifies God and to respect others.
Nancy: Thank you, Meadow. It's been so wonderful to have you with us today. Next week, we're going to talk together again. Just listen for the next episode because Meadow is going to be with me again. Let's pray as we close.
“Dear precious Father, we thank you so much that we can talk together about things that really concern us as women. And Lord, we pray that You will get a hold of all our hearts, that we will have soft and tender hearts toward You, toward Your heartbeat. Oh God, to listen to You, not the spirit of the world. It seems, dear Father, that the more we're getting further away from You, the more women are exposing themselves. Help us to come close to You. Oh God, I pray for each one listening today that You will bless their lives and bless their families and just draw them closer to You. Show them more and more of Your ways. Lead us all more and more into Your everlasting ways. We ask it in the name of Jesus, Amen.”