A Month Without Makeup - Day 4 Recap
Thursday, February 05, 2009 - Comments 3
It was amazing to get up this morning and see that a girl named Mandy had posted a poem on her Facebook page, inspired by this experiment (I’ve posted it below). And as the day ended, there was yet another friend (Aubrey) posting about how she was going to do her own experiment tomorrow.
Wow.
I do hope those of you joining the experiment will send us some blog entries with pics – it would be fun to post them. Just email to .
With the flurry of activity surrounding this experiment, my cohort Travis is kind of chomping at the bit to get into some deep theological discussions about a biblical view of the body. I told him I’m not sharing the blog this month (just seems weird), but I think it would be pretty interesting for the two of us to record a phone conversation about it all.
Honestly, there’s a part of me that doesn’t really want a guy speaking into this right now. Which has prompted me to consider how we women often have a love/hate relationship with the men in our lives, constantly vacillating between wanting to know what they think and not wanting them to give us their opinion until asked. Especially when it comes to an issue so personal – and so feminine – as how a woman views her body.
So… it should be an interesting conversation. We’ll post a podcast of it in the next couple weeks. I’ll let you know when it’s up.
Places I went today:
1. Work!! And I didn’t even feel compelled to explain to Samuel, one of the counselors in our office (the only other one here yesterday) why I had no makeup on. You know what? I just didn’t even care what he thought. That is a totally new feeling…
Negative responses: 0
Positive responses: Plenty. But interestingly, mostly from women… hmm…
Favorite line of the day, from my friend Bill McInnes again, after viewing me in all my makeup-free glory in this blog. You look more beautiful than ever! What is beauty other than Truth?
I should mention that Bill was there the night of the Darryl Roberts taping (should be posted today or tomorrow – we’ll put a link up ASAP), when I looked all “put together.” A supporter of my work at FINDINGbalance, I was quite sure he would not like me anymore and/or believe in me as a business person if he saw me without makeup.
Apparently, I couldn’t have been further from the truth…
--- Here’s Mandy’s Poem ---
Makeup for me. 11:44pm
You seduce me in your deceptive glare
My identity that was once found there
Erased by a clean face and a raw open heart
The day pressing in on this brand new start
I hide away your names in the most elusive of drawers
Almay and Maybelline will seek me no more
I’ve not given in to your trickery and shame
That I am unpleasant or somehow maimed
But yet with you my life makes sense
Plaster away at my chiseled dents
Render me striking with your fine tipped marker
Make my skin gleam and my lashes darker
Make up for me, what my creator could not
His handwork written off as my makeup is bought
My soul is sold to the lie that I am not enough
Even though I am already bought with His blood
Can I learn to hate you and love the way I am?
Crafted in excellence by his creative hand
Soon enough this life will fade
And in Him, a new body will be made
Beautiful, timeless, & priceless among men
I will no longer be sold or condemned
I will no longer be bought or persuaded
For I belong to the King of the ages
-Mandy
I decided to take up the challenge to abstain from makeup for one month. This is so hard. I didn’t used to wear it often, but in the last year or so, I’ve become so dependent on it…