Sparkle

~Proverbs 31:30 “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” ~

What I am sure will be a constant and ongoing battle for me with my pride and vanity led me to decide to give up wearing makeup for a week. Basically I was praying in church for the Lord to help me with my vanity and the suggestion was placed in my mind to go on a makeup fast. I also told myself that I could not tell anyone why I was not wearing makeup, offer no excuses nor could I brag afterwards about it. (so hopefully this doesn't constitute as such) What astounded me most about it was not the embarrassment but more how I wanted to constantly give excuses or explain to people why I looked so lousy. "Hey, the monk look is in don't you know, I have a hair shirt on order from Saks."(Goggle monks if you don't get this reference) Instead, I had to bite my tongue completely and in a nonchalant way say, "Yeah, I don't have any makeup on." I am sure you males can't relate, you don't have something that you feel completely naked and exposed without, do you? Or do you?

A male friend said when he started going bald it was his hat, and he didn't want to take that thing off for dear life and expose to the world that he was losing his precious hair. A lot of women I know don't need a drop of makeup and honestly up until about a year ago I didn't feel I did either but as my mother, Oh so loving pointed out to me one day: "Honey you're getting old and you need to wear makeup now! Everything and I mean everything falls apart at thirty!" Thanks Mom. I think my response and I kid you not was, "I hoped nobody else had noticed,-- Oh no, wait, that was after she informed me I needed to get a new kind of makeup because "I ALWAYS look greasy."

If you want an honest and forthright appraisal of –anything, look no further than my sainted mother, she will tell it to you straight and won't spare your feelings or mince words. I appreciate it on some levels. But between my father who never lies and my mother, my pregnant sister keeps asking for trouble pestering everyone with the whole question of, "Do I look bigger?" A word to the wise,be careful what you ask.

So yes, in response to your unspoken question both my parents pointed out rather, umm, pointedly that I was not wearing any makeup and I didn't let it go any further than that. Most other, (I'll refrain from using the word normal here), people didn't pry to hard as to why I didn't have makeup on. Some people just looked at me for a while as if they couldn't quite figure out what was "wrong" and those were the ones I had the hardest time keeping my mouth shut around. It was harder with them because I couldn't even say I didn't have makeup on, I could say nothing; I couldn't address something they didn't bring up. I couldn't suddenly pipe up, "Stop looking at me that way, I don't have any makeup on okay, I am trying to work on my vanity and it is revealing to me, how I put way to much importance on my looks.

Thank you for making me all the more aware of the gigantic zit I nicknamed Vesuvius which is due to erupt in t-minus and counting. You might want to watch out and take a step back. Sorry I have had to make you so painfully aware of it due to my abstaining from all types of cover up. -- It's called cover up for a reason it's supposed to cover up all of our flaws. And in covering up your flaws it makes you feel more confident, just as the lack there of made me feel so self-conscious and insecure.

I became afraid to look people in the eye and felt somehow if I didn't look at them closely then they wouldn't look at me closely. Or at least that is what I hoped. I realized how ridiculous it was that I felt less of a person merely because I was lacking some bat guana (bat feces is the main ingredient in most mascaras) and mica (powder) on my face. The word mascara derives from the Italian maschera which means "mask." My makeup was a mask and I felt prettier hiding behind it.

While enjoying the lovely April evening driving home the other night, I noticed that someone still had up in their Christmas tree lights. The lights were not turned on but I saw them faintly sparkling in the moonlight wrapped all around the limbs and the trunk of an outdoor deciduous tree. I thought poor little tree, it needs to push out its buds and leaves and will be inhibited by the wires and lights constricting it's ability to properly grow in this, Oh, so essential time of spring! In the wintertime when the tree was barren and leafless the lights ornamented it nicely all lit up and lovely. But now that it is springtime it would be an embarrassment to announce that you haven't taken them down, so instead the lights are hampering and hurting the tree rather than highlighting it.

Why does this relate? I think I let my dependence, the importance I placed or even the sense of security I felt when wearing makeup inhibit my growth as a person. And it was only in taking it off for a week that I discovered what all I was really covering up, not just the skin, not just the flaws of flesh, but I revealed the weakness in the walls of my own sense of self. The Lord loves me in Covergirl makeup or none. I need to love my reflection with my mascara mask in place or running in rivulets down my tear stained cheeks. I laughed the Sunday after I started wearing it again that God wasn't ready for me to start shlacking it back on because He was chipping it right back off again by having me cry all my clown face off in church. (Have no fear, they were all tears of joy.)

1 Peter 1:3-5 “Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful.”

As an advertising refrain for a brand of makeup poses, “maybe she's born with it, maybe it Maybelline”, or maybe, just maybe it is so much more than that. Maybe she is born with it, maybe it is Maybelline, and maybe the Lord has blessed her with a beauty that shines out of her because she finally knows that the Lord loves her no matter what, tear stained, volcanic zits, or Tammy Faye eyelashes.

~Psalm 139:13-18 “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.”

Just like the Christmas tree lights I like my makeup to sparkle and highlight my attributes but I know that my real beauty only comes from the Lord from what He created in me, what He gave me in my DNA and from the transformation He is slowly but surely doing in me day by day.

Lord, help us to strip away whatever might be covering up and inhibiting our growth in You. Let us focus on the things of you and shed the vanities of this world and instead focus on sparkling for Your Glory Alone!

Heaven Helped Me 5/5/08
Love Always,
A*