Day Nineteen.

It’s Day 19 in this make-up-free process. Day 19.

To say that today is better than Day 1 is an understatement of disproportionate quantity. I’ve had a lot of questions about my last post on the topic. A mixed response, to be honest.

Several people have said what I shared about insecurity seemed personal, intimate, or private. I think that interpretation is interesting. I mean, yeah, it was a little personal, but only ever so slightly. I think it’s simply female.

Some have reminded me that make up isn’t evil. And I’ve reminded them I know it isn’t.

A couple girls say they don’t know if they could do it. A couple have asked to join me. One girl actually has.

I’m so grateful for the conversation this has produced. Seriously, I didn’t think many people would read it, and so the response has been such a fantastic surprise. And, you know, I think conversation is the point. I think the best we could hope for is to talk about it – to talk about our insecurities, our fears, our faces, our Jesus, our uglies, our sin, our hiding. Because unless we’re talking about it, we’re living in isolation. Why not chat about make up? Why not talk about how painful the unmasking can be? Why not chat about the hidden parts our lives? Why not? Well, because it’s freaking terrifying, that’s why. But I’m slowly finding that it’s so, so worth it.

Anywayssss.

By today, Day 19, I’ve gotten used to my face. Ha, I know that sounds silly. But seriously, about three days ago I started recognizing my face in the mirror. I couldn’t have named the process that way at the time, but once I did it saddened my heart. How far I’ve come from being comfortable in my own skin. Though this make up-free process is just surface level, it’s striking to me how unfamiliar I am with myself. Just as I didn’t know the face beneath the make up, I didn’t know these insecurities where here underneath. And they, too, are becoming more familiar. It is certainly more commonplace now for me to talk to Jesus about my insecurities.

I didn’t before.
Because I didn’t have to.
Because I fixed each one myself.
Or at least covered it up.

But if there’s one thing I’m seeing more clearly through this process, short as it has been, is that make up is just once facet of the numerous ways we hide ourselves. I’m not as far from Eden as I would have liked to think. There are insecurities and wounds that are much deeper than the skin and bigger than fig leaves or foundation can fix. There are places in my heart that still believe lies from billboards and magazines and pretty little snakes who flatter with their slithering, sly selves. I would have like to say I was beyond that, more mature spiritually than that.

But. Well. I’m not.

I’d like to say that by now I have an answer for the lies. Or at least some will power to speak against them. But the thing is, the serpent rarely comes to us gnashing his fangs and rattling his tail. No, he comes much more nicely, more covertly, much prettier and usually airbrushed. Not threatening or terrifying, just questioning and spinning sultry stories in which we are the main character. No, he never calls it pride, just self-esteem; not self-centeredness, just self-improvement. His words are pretty, and, well, that’s all we’ve wanted to be.

Thank God the story doesn’t end there.

Before that Genesis three narrative ends, we’re given a promise, a promise that is for us on this side of Eden today as well.

Us, in our fig leaves.
Us, with out naked faces.
Us, with our inner uglies.

It’s a promise of salvation and a promise that keeps on saving us today. And I think it can save us from even this. I mean, I think He can. And I think He will.