A couple nights ago I was sent to return some left-behind products to the cosmetics department of the store where I work. Upon stepping into the first aisle, I found myself surrounded with completely unfamiliar products. There were rows upon rows of strange powders in small clear cases carefully arranged into racks and sorted by color--even though they were all really just very, very slightly different shades of brown. There were pencils of various sorts and descriptions, again carefully arranged by indistinguishable shades of black, red, green, or blue. The lipsticks and nail polish presented similar problems. Then, there were all sorts of arcane-looking metal and plastic tools. Finally, there were things there that I'd never even known existed: false eyelashes, plastic fingernails with break-off tabs like the models I assembled with plastic cement when I was a kid...
I found my way around eventually and started putting the products in my handbasket back in their places on the shelves (it really helped that all those color-sorted products also had numerical codes written on the back to help me tell that the foundation I held was "sand" colored instead of "sunkissed," which are visually indistinguishable). However, as I worked, though, I couldn't shake the feeling of strangeness and revulsion. I was trying hard not to imagine how one would go about using glue-on eyelashes or a sharp, metal probe called a "cuticle remover" (or the accidents that could result from the same). Even when I managed that successfully, I kept imagining a woman who used all of these things: false eyelashes, plastic fingernails and toenails, penciled-in eyebrows, layers of foundation, mascara, and lipstick, every inch of skin shaved, plucked, waxed, prodded, and probed...a woman who was more artificial than natural. Worse, I imagined a woman who might think she needed all of that: a woman who was so convinced of her ugliness that she believed she needed to cover every inch of herself in a thick mask of made-in-China plastics, powders, and glazes in order to be presentable. That thought made me feel sick at heart. If I knew such a girl, I would spray her with a waterhose until she was clean from all the makeup and artificial junk, till she was just herself: genuine, real, unassuming, and beautiful. Like many men, I know that women are more beautiful without any makeup on. People are more attractive when they're real and not putting on a show.
Now, if you're a woman and you're reading this (and wearing makeup), please don't think I'm judging you and your choices. They are your own. If you prefer to use makeup, if you think you need some in order to look the way you want to, far be it from me to say what you should and shouldn't do, what makes you look better or worse. You know that far better than I! But those were my thoughts while I walked the cosmetics aisle, and I don't think it was by accident I was there. God was trying to tell me something about the way He sees me. Every day, I am tempted to look at my life, my heart, my feelings, thoughts, and desires, and say, "Eww, I can't let God catch me looking like this. I've got to prune this, get rid of that, cover all of this over, and mask it all in spiritual practices x, y, and z." There's nothing wrong with makeup, and there's nothing wrong with spiritual practices, but what I'm tempted to do is make a mask, an artificial self, whereby I can be presentable to God. I'm tricked into thinking that without a mask, I'm repulsive: that if God saw me as I really am, He'd turn away from me. But the truth is God saw me as I really was before I knew Him, when I was at my absolute worst...and He loved me. He had compassion on me and took me in. When I was dead and polluted with blood, He said to me, "Live!" (Ezekiel 16:3-14). When I was ugly as I could be, He had compassion on me, and made me beautiful, and made me His own. Now, He sees me as I can never quite see myself, as His beloved, as His radiant and worthy Bride (Revelation 3:4). When I walked the cosmetics aisle and ruefully thought, Women are more attractive without makeup, He agreed: Christians shine brighter without their masks.
I know that Christian "makeup" was a big thing in my past. My relationship with God was more about keeping on a mask than being real with Him. But God has His own version of a waterhose and, thankfully, is none too shy about using it. There are still times and places where masks and makeup wait for me, but my heart before Him is clean, wet, dripping, laughing, bright, and beautiful.
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