Should you wear make up?

How old were you when you started to wear make up?

Why did you want to wear it?

Was it because your peers did?

Because of the magazines you saw?

Curiosity?

I can’t exactly remember when I started to wear make up… but I do remember feeling the need to at one point, because I felt unattractive… or less than if I didn’t. I remember shying away from things that required me to be “bare” and “make up-less” in front of others as a teen. I remember even into my young adult years, youth trips or singles trips that involved a sleeping over and “showering” – reveal “real bare skin” was always just so uncomfortable for me.

I didn’t want them to see me without make up.

I remember wanting to be perfect… even though I never felt it.

Living up to todays beauty standards is pretty fleeting. No one can measure up to the magazine covers and perfection that our media portrays. Perfectly poreless skin, dimple free thighs and board flat stomachs. Celebs with the thickest most perfected hair… the pouted perfect lips and most amazing eyes.

While I always prided myself in having a thick skin… in being unique and artsy… I always doubted my beauty and even to this day I will find ways to talk down on how I look.

God has been doing a work in me though… through books, scripture and others… and just really beginning to show me that beauty is so much more than a perfected face or rock hard body. No amount of perfection will ever make us happy if we never come to realize how amazing our God is and how He made us each the way He wanted… and there is beauty in His creation.

I am reading a book right now called “Calm my Anxious Heart” by Linda Dillow. I’ve been struggling with anxiety for years and as of late its been pretty high up there… so a friend suggested this book to me and I am so glad she did. It has been wonderful and the Lord is using it to refine me in ways I truly needed.

In Chapter 3 the author talks about Beauty… with a chapter entitled “Content to Be Me.” – The main piece of scripture she talks about in this chapter is Psalm 139. Those familiar with scripture will know what this talks about :) – but to those not familiar with it, I want to paraphrase it as the author did at the beginning of the chapter. She wanted to write out Psalm 139 as if she was speaking to her “precious-yet to be born granddaughter”….

I don’t have a daughter… The Lord has chosen not to give me one “yet” :) – but I know if we are ever blessed with a baby girl… I would want her to realize how amazing our God is and how He knit together her body… her soul and her spirit with such detail and care.

We live in a broken world and with it comes our brokeness and doubt.

Know today that you are beautiful and loved by Christ.

With your blemishes.

Your dark circles.

The chapped lips.

Or slightly crooked nose.

He loves us and every imperfection and flaw we come up with.

To end, I thought for fun… really to humor myself… that I would make up a video showing how I apply my make up.

I really gained confidence in my own skin years back… learning that it didn’t matter if I wore make up daily or didn’t… that make up was fun… and could be used to enhance who we were… but that I didn’t need to rely on it to make me who I was.

I watch lost of make up tutorials online… for the heck of it. Because it truly fascinates me to watch people transform themselves with layer after layer… I know very little about make up… but what I do know is when I apply make up. I want people to see me.

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