A Month Without Makeup - Day Two Recap

Tuesday, February 03, 2009 - Comments 1

Amazingly, I’m already getting the hang of this. Don’t get me wrong, I still have a pretty strong reaction each time I see a pic of myself posted without makeup. And honestly, I have a hard time believing people who say I look “beautiful” without it, as so many of you so graciously have done. But I can tell you that posting the day-2 pic was a lot easier than the first day. It was kind of like, “Heck, they’ve already seen me looking horrible. What’s the point of worrying about it now?”

There’s freedom in that.

It was also kinda fun to hear my daughter get excited when she saw the day 2 pic up on the screen. “Mommy, mommy, mommy…” she said joyfully. Cool.

Something else that’s hit me as I’ve read through the overwhelming number of comments here and at my Facebook pages… I want to make clear that we here at True are not advocating this experiment as something that “should” be done by everyone out there in order to “really” be “true.”

So many of us come from backgrounds of seeking “the answer” to what will make us “right” or “good.” Many of us also struggle with living in extremes, and I can imagine that some of you following this experiment might be tempted to believe that perhaps you’re wrong for wearing makeup (if you do), or that going without it will somehow make us better, or more holy in some way. While we could probably have a great, fun, healthy theological debate about this, that is not what led me to this experiment.

As much as I do hope that some of you will join me in this challenge in some way (and I know some of you already have, and to others this is just a normal way of life anyway), this experiment is a personal one for me. I’m doing it because I think God wants to deal with how much I have depended on my physical appearance to get me by in life. I’m doing it because I want to dig deeper into who I am without it, and why those two “Constance’s” sometimes seem like different people. Most of all, I’m doing it because I felt God leading me in this direction earlier last year, and I believe now is His time for me to act.

So if there are any of you who have felt guilty, ashamed, or any other negative thing about yourself as a result of reading about my journey, I invite you to rest in God’s freedom. It’s not about whether we do or don’t wear makeup. For that matter, it’s not about whether we do or don’t eat what we should. It’s about responding when God asks us to give up an idol.

For me, makeup has been that idol.

Places I went today:

1. Bank
2. Mall
3. FINDINGbalance Gathering – about 15 people were there. Here’s a pic of a few of them…

Negative responses: 2
Positive responses (including your sweet comments here!): Too many to count.

Favorite line of the day, from my friend Jennifer, who obviously hasn’t been on Facebook today: “Do you have a cold?” (no) “Oh, well, are you tired?” (um, no…)

I didn’t bother explaining… ☺