Chapter 9
Chapter 9
A Few Words for Christian Girls
Dear friends,
I have many things to say to you (suggested by the experiences of our own church life and Bible classes), which I want you to think over quietly, so I will put them all into a letter you can keep and read again and again. As you read it, try to think of me as an elder brother who is eager to help you.
In all this world, there is nothing lovelier than the young life God has given you with its sunny laughter, its high spirits, its hopes and golden dreams, its wealth of pure love. You can enrich the poorest home like no money could. You can lighten the hardest lot in life. You can bring cheerfulness to the roughest path, making weary feet forget the sharp stones along the way. You can find the blue flowers blooming amid arctic snows, and by doing so, you may give and get untold blessings.
I am glad you’ve given your heart and life to the Lord Jesus. You will never regret that step by which Jesus has become your Brother. Remember how He said, For whosoever doeth the will of God, the same is my . . . sister” (Mark 3:35). And no one knows better than He does how much the tie between a strong and noble Brother and the sisters who shelter beneath His care means. He grew up with sisters in that village home under the blue Syrian skies; and, as the shadows of death gathered around His path, He made much of the love of His adopted sisters, Mary and Martha, in the home in Bethany.
Words fail me to tell you all that the Lord Jesus will do for you. He will keep your heart whiter than snow, removing each stain of sin by His own precious blood. He will put Himself as a shield between you and all types of hurt. He will make you His special responsibility and will quench your thirst from the brimming chalice of His own love. He will guide you through confusion, protect you in dangers, and supply all your need in times of necessity. He will give you what all women long for − the sense of belonging to someone good enough, wise enough, and strong enough, someone to trust without misgivings or fear.
But I hope you will be all for Him. This is the only path on which the sunbeams always play. There are many professing Christians who have just enough religion to make them miserable, and by their actions, they might as well be without any. They take a good drink of the sweets of the world and then try to quiet their conscience by a pilgrimage to the living well. But even though they rattle the chains and let down their buckets, they never get one pure crystal drop for their poor parched lips because they don’t seek the Lord with all their heart. And so, after a little while, they rush off again to the gilded pleasures of the world.
Don’t make their mistake. In the same way Jesus gave all for you, give all to Him and He will give you back one hundredfold. When you are unswervingly right with Christ, other things will right themselves.
Dress
Dress perplexes some and takes up much time and thought. It is a difficult subject, and yet a Christian girl has several clear rules to guide her.
Do not dress in a showy or extravagant manner or beyond your means.
Do not dress in such a way as to call attention to any part of your figure or to distort or alter it.
Do not dress so people will notice your dress more than you.
There is no reason why the general style of your dress shouldn’t be like that of other people, because to be totally out of fashion would make you needlessly stand out and attract as much attention as if you were dressed to the height of fashion. And whatever makes others focus on us, or us think about ourselves, actually turns thoughts away from Jesus and from better things. I think there is no higher virtuosity for a Christian girl than to dress simply, quietly, and tastefully, as one who is careful about the body which Christ has given her, but who is also mindful of the apostle Paul’s words: In like manner also that the women adorn themselves in an honest manner, with shyness and modesty, not with ostentatious hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing (1 Timothy 2:9).
Ornaments
The use of ornaments is also a heart matter. It isn’t a critical matter and is something to be settled between you and Christ. If you experience doubts, the little trinkets should be laid aside until the great Owner tells His servants what He would like them to do.
It does seem strange that so much money would be locked up in articles of personal adornment when the Lord’s cause is suffering for lack of help. A Chinese Christian lady brought her jewels one morning to her husband, to build an Opium refuge, and when he expressed surprise, she said, “I have taken Christ for my adornment, and surely that is enough for any Christian woman.”
Put on the Lord Jesus, dear sisters, and you will lose your taste for many things you now hold dear, in the same way most girls would throw away glass jewelry if offered real gems. Let their adorning not be outward with ostentatious hairdos and wearing of gold nor in composition of apparel, but let the interior adorning of the heart be without corruption, and of an agreeable spirit and peaceful, which is precious in the sight of God (1 Peter 3:3-4).
The woman who loads herself with jewels confesses herself to be lacking in the jewels of the heart; but she who has obtained these, worries little about the diamonds or pearls of earthly mines.
Amusements
Amusements also employ the time of many. We must have rest and change in these busy impetuous times, but we must watch our leisure hours so as not to let them do us more harm than good. Some ways of spending this free time simply increase the exhaustion of the jaded mind and tired body and make us unfit for quiet prayer or daily work.
For these reasons and others, you must keep clear of the theater, the concert hall, and the dancing saloon. You can’t go to these places and keep the fullness of the Spirit or the love of Jesus. You can’t go to them without hearing or seeing things which should bring a blush to the face. You can’t go to them without putting yourself into the path of men with whom you should have no dealings whatsoever.
The atmosphere of such places will stain the best life, as gas blights tender plants. If you live near Christ, you will soon stop going to them, just like people put out their fires when the summer sun is shining. Remember the responsibilities and demands of home, the necessity for older sisters to throw themselves into the amusements of younger children, the many social and educational meetings held at churches and chapels, and other Christian institutions, and I am sure you will find there’s no need for you to seek pleasure in things which leave a sting behind.
Dancing
Dancing is a matter to be settled between you and Christ.
I have often wondered how girls who have any self-respect can yield themselves, especially when attired in the flimsy costume of a ballroom, to the embrace of strange men, whose morals may be worse than doubtful. It doesn’t seem fitting that the body of a Christian, meant to be the temple of the Holy Spirit, should be whirled through the maze of a waltz by one whose linen may be spotless, but whose soul is dark with the ruin of some of your sisters, who, though fallen now, were once “white as the beautiful snow.”
Young men are rather cautious about the girls they love going to these promiscuous dances, and a straw shows the drift of the stream. No sensible man will choose his wife in a ballroom, nor a wise woman her husband. On the other hand, a young Christian girl told me the other day that since she gave this up for Christ, He had filled her with unspeakable joy.
Novels
Beware of reading novels. Many a magnificent tree has been eaten through by minute insects, and many a promising character has been inwardly rotted by certain kinds of novels and novelettes, especially those issued in cheap weekly issues. Some young friends of mine, when once bitten by this fever, have done nothing but read trashy and sentimental stories. They will deprive themselves of food and sleep to read them, and as a result, a great change takes place. They are so absorbed with the joys and sorrows of imaginary people that they overlook relationships within their immediate circle. Their appetite is so satiated by sweets that they have no interest in the Bread of Life. They talk to you like a person living in a dreamland of unreality.
I plead with you to guard against the insidious growth of this appetite. If you find it encroaching on you, break it off. Lay it aside in the strength of Christ, in the same way the runner lays aside every weight. Leaving behind all the weight of the sin which surrounds us, let us run with patience the race that is set before us (Hebrews 12:1). If you must read stories, read only those by the cleanest storytellers. Remember that there are many books about travel, history, and biography equal in interest to any fiction that was ever spun in the brain of man or woman.
Purity
It is of the highest importance to keep absolutely pure. All around you are impure books, and men, and works − all ready to soil you, like the soot of ashes does to clean linen hung out to dry in some poor courtyard.
You must guard against their approach right from the start. Many a young girl has dated her ruin from her first smile at an indecent suggestion. The other day I heard about a married woman who said, as a young girl entered the workroom for the first time, “Let her sit by me; I will soon shock her.” Shame on her! Regrettably, how much of this is going on everywhere. But, so long as you are pure, you will find that Christlike chastity is an armor from which all these poisoned darts will glance aside. Depend on it, that a woman can pass unhurt through the foulest environment if only her heart is pure and she is living in touch with Christ. Many times she will be able to frown down some indecent and unseemly joke or guard some young life.
Marriage
In the same way Ruth did, every woman looks forward to being settled in the home of her husband. Unfortunately, in many cases, the woman finds herself dealing with disenchantment. The shores of time are strewn with the wrecks of women’s loves and hopes, and all because they have forgotten that true human love must be grounded on the love and choice and will of God. Human love can’t satisfy apart from the love of God.
Make Jesus your counsellor regarding your future.
And now, as I say farewell, please accept my sincerest wishes for your happiness in this world and the next. Be ready for the Bridegroom’s coming and see that the lamp of your love is well supplied with the precious oil of the Holy Spirit, so you may be ready to go in at once to the marriage feast.
Your sincere friend and brother,
F. B. Meyer