What makes a person beautiful? Is it the way they smile or what they eyes look like? Maybe it’s what that person is wearing, or how their hair looks.

All of those things are the outside appearances of a person not what their heart looks like. Now I get the fact that you cannot look at a persons heart and say, “yup, we’ve got a good one folks.” It’s much deeper then that; you need to see what that person does when people aren’t looking. Do they hold the door open for someone else, or give a stranger a compliment? What do they say about their friends, do they praise God with their whole heart and not just half? If so, that is what’s beautiful. Not what kind of eye shadow they are wearing or the brand of clothes they have, it’s the simple acts of kindness and thoughtfulness of their heart that is truly beautiful.

I struggle with this word so often because of what the world thinks is suppose to be beautiful and gorgeous. Girls think that we need to make ourselves look a certain way to feel beautiful. Here’s my morning routine:

Wake up and brush my teeth

Fist put on foundation and then fix my hair while it sets for the rest of my makeup to be put on over it for about 10-15 mins

Start putting on blush, concealer, eye shadow, highlighter, and mascara for 20-25 mins

Run to put on clothes and then skip breakfast depending on how long it takes me with my makeup and go to school. 

All for what? So I can feel beautiful and put together at school and anywhere else I go? Yes. I started to believe the lies that satan was putting in my head about how I looked like a guy without makeup, or that I looked ugly and no guy would like me without my security blanket, makeup. Enough is Enough. God doesn’t look at the type of makeup I wear or how I do my hair, He looks at the child He wonderfully and fearfully made! Instead of looking at myself in shame and disgust without my makeup on I will start to look at myself the way God looks at me.

For lent I will not spend the 30-40 minutes int he morning putting on makeup, instead I will spend that time with Jesus. Each morning I will start to deepen my relation with Him. I will only listen to music that praises the Father instead of music that tends to praise myself. I will start to see what I look like through Gods eyes and not my own or the worlds eyes.

You ARE beautiful without all the things you think you need to be. Look at yourself and say with pride, “I am a child of God, He made me beautiful starting form the inside out.” 

Join me in giving up makeup and spending that time with God. It’s going to be hard but I believe that we can do this together.