This morning, I will “put my face on,” as my Grandmother calls it. I will get ready to face the world, using all the products I have collected to help me look my best. And as I do, I will face the same internal struggle I face every day. Maybe it’s a struggle you know, too. I guarantee it is a struggle your daughter knows, at some level. Your sister, friend, niece, and granddaughter know it, too. It is a struggle common to women, because there are weapons formed and aimed directly at us, in the attempt to mar the fierce, perfect beauty we were created with.
The question that has risen in my heart lately is this: Am I aiming for my best, or someone else’s version of best? Is the beauty I am trying to achieve or cultivate aimed at the heart of my King Jesus, or is it aimed at agreement with and admiration from the world of fabricated beauty?
Products abound which provoke this question. Yesterday I had to run into the makeup store to pick up some products I was running low on. I both love and hate the makeup store. The glitter and glam are alluring, and at first I feel like a youthful heart in Disneyland at Christmas time. But before long, the lying spirit of vanity begins to wrap its fingers around my neck and pull me into the trap of comparison and the pit of needing more and more and more to make my beauty better. Maybe I’m the only one who has such an experience, but maybe not…Maybe if there are more women who choose to cultivate true beauty and resist the fabricated, other women will begin to sense the lure of what is false and binding, as well. Maybe then we could begin to unite and provide a different way for our daughters, sisters, friends, nieces and granddaughters.
You can buy confidence in a jar, literally. Or you can get it for free, from the chambers of the King who is enthralled with your real beauty, the beauty He created you with (Psalm 45:11). You can’t buy the kind of radiance that is drawn from the light of Jesus’ presence.
I don’t think we have to go without makeup to cultivate true beauty. I don’t think makeup and skincare are wrong. In fact, I think they are, or can be, helpful tools to help us look our best. But I think there is a thin and deceptive line between looking our best and looking like the prevailing standard of the”beauty” industry looks. I think it is the difference between wearing makeup and letting makeup recreate us.
Let this become a discussion between you and the women you love today! Maybe you don’t face this struggle, but I promise that some woman near and dear to you does, even if she has given up trying to keep up with the beauty industry. Let’s remind each other to cultivate true beauty, the beauty of a soul and spirit rooted in Christ, and to use beauty products with wisdom and discretion. Let’s encourage each other to begin our beauty routines in the presence of the Beholder of our Beauty: the King Who created us and loves us deeply!
Be blessed in your discussions!
She Dances Over Graves 