“You gave up makeup for lent? Woah girl hows that going?”
A full week has gone by without any makeup and let me tell you how freeing it is! I can rub my eyes and not get mascara everywhere or fall asleep without worrying about getting it everywhere. I feel so liberated most of the time, and then the feeling of ugliness creeps back in.
The first day of lent I ended up getting a huge cold sore on my chin and even a week later I still have the red mark left over. I felt so awful not only emotionally but physically and all I could think was, “Of I would get a cold sore as soon as I wasn’t able to wear any makeup to cover it up.” I felt so discouraged and all I wanted to do was run to my bathroom and cover this, almost shameful, thing on my face.
I think that this relates to not only my life but everyone’s because as soon as we do something wrong or shameful we want to run towards safety to cover up what we’ve done. For so long I tried to cover up things that I felt embarrassed about, too scared to say anything because I knew it was wrong or that wasn’t following God with my whole heart. Gods love for us is SO great and those things that make us feel ashamed and we try to cover up God already knows, yet He loves us anyway! The cold sore that I thought was so incredibly ugly ended up showing me how much we try to cover up our faults and past.
I looked at my naked face in the mirror and all I heard was beautifully made. God didn’t care how embarrassed or shameful I felt about it, all He cared about was that I would hear HIS words lifting me up and not my own words bringing me down. The things we feel so scared to uncover in our past or what we are still going through doesn’t matter to the God that’s love for us moves mountains. Let God speak to your heart, let Him be the one to tell you that you are beautiful and wanted, give Him the chance to show you how whatever you are ashamed of is in the past and that He is the future.
When people ask me how giving up makeup for lent is going I tell them that its hard but it is going beautifully.
