"Why do you wear all that?" my daughter asked me as she stared into my makeup drawer. I gave her the standard answers, "I just use it to bring out my natural beauty. It makes me feel good." "Does it really, or does it just make you feel different?" My daughters have been pressuring me for some time now to give up make up. I am not sure exactly why it is important to them. I thought having teenage girls would mean that I would nag them to tone their makeup down. I don't see myself as a person who uses too much, I don't spend a lot of time on it. I have perfected a five minute routine that makes me comfortable. I touch up a little lip stick. But they kept nagging me, kept commenting that there was some disharmony between who I really am and the amount of makeup I wear.
I ignored them at first, then I tried to justify my use. "I am a professional. Makeup is part of my image as a pastor. I have to look presentable." But they didn't relent. They kept after me. And I resisted. Finally it the resistance I was putting up caught my notice. Why do I need make up and is it inauthentic to who I really am? Giving up makeup seemed hard. And sometimes when I consider doing something and I realize that it really scares me, I have to go forward and do it because life has taught me over and over that the hardest decision is often the best.
So this is it. My first day without makeup. I negotiated so that I can wear chap stick and mascara if I get desperate and that I am allowed to wear makeup when I preach. When I told my mother she said, "You can't DO that!" I laughed. Is there really any reason my naked face is unacceptable?
I made it to noon, and to be honest, I have thought about my face as much as another day, maybe more. But when I got in the car and began to drive a strange thing happened. Suddenly my eyes were wet and tears were flowing. There are plenty of reasons for the tears, my dad's on hospice, church work can be exhausting, I am struggling to finish seminary. I wondered if the freedom from concern about smearing eye makeup was the reason I was free to cry. Or was it just that I was vulnerable.
Standing vulnerable in front of God is the best place to be. But it is hard. This is an intense time in my life, a time when I am vulnerable in new ways and when that vulnerability is formative and powerfully affecting my spiritual life. It is hard to accept that God would love me "as is." Actually returning to as is without any repairs or upgrades might be the best thing for me.
I have an event tonight that will involve public speaking. I am struggling to decide if I will "do my face." I don't know how the makeup fast will end or what I will learn, but I know that even if this is merely a metaphor my spiritual health I need to be more transparent, more authentic, more naked in front of God. Time to take off my mask and just be.
