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“He has made everything beautiful in its time. . . yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” ~Ecclesiastes 3: 11

First, let me just just address the obvious. Yes, it has been an incredibly long time since I posted. I feel like I should begin this post with “Cash Money Records takin’ over for the ’99” because I feel like that’s how long it’s been since I posted anything… However, I am back. A lot has been going on in the interim, namely, a new job! So excited about that. So it’s taken me a while to get my footing, but now that I have, I’m back and will return to posting more regularly, the Lord willing 🙂  Below are some thoughts I had a few weeks ago. Enjoy!

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“I just want foundation,” I found myself repeating in my  head. I looked mournfully at the MAC counter—an empty space in front of the register where a salesperson should have been. I glanced rather stoically at my feet where my one-year-old son had fallen out in a tantrum and had not yet gotten up. My eyes then traveled from my feet to my daughter, the three-year-old, standing beside me holding a bag of ice to her ear. I had arrived at daycare earlier that evening to find that her ear had swollen to mammoth proportions and was red and itchy.

Her ear reminded me of Will Smith’s ears and face when he got that food allergy in that movie with Eva Mendes. “What was it called?” I asked myself. “It’s that one where they go on a date on jet skis in the Hudson River,” I continued to think to myself. Drawing a blank on the movie title, I shifted my thoughts to the events of the day and how those events had landed me there, at the MAC counter, MAC-less.

I had left work an hour and a half earlier focused on a goal. I picked the kids up from daycare, drove directly home, gave my daughter some Benadryl and some ice, made quick PB&J sandwiches and headed out the door, determined to make it to the MAC counter before they closed. I had arrived to work that day sans foundation and my co-workers were looking at me like I had two heads.  I understood. I’m a person who wears makeup Monday through Friday, so to see me without it–to see the actual scars on my face, my uneven complexion–could be a little unsettling. My co-workers were used to seeing the illusion of perfection when it came to my skin, and dare I say, my life. But that particular morning, I was tired. I was late. And I just didn’t have the time or energy to put on the mask.

And really, I feel like that’s where God kind of has me right now. In my devotional time, I’ve been doing a study on finding my self-worth in Jesus. Through this study God has been showing me my inner scars and unbalanced, discolored places. Previously, I would get a peek of those areas and then quickly try to cover them up with the “foundation” of my life: my husband, kids and my profession. “See, aren’t we a perfect-looking family?” I’d ask the world around me. “No, there’s nothing wrong here. This lawyer-mommy-wife has it all together! I’ve got the career, handsome husband and beautiful kids to show for it.”

It’s one thing to put on makeup to enhance your face, your natural features. It’s quite another to put makeup on to completely transform who you are. (Think glam squad versus horror movie makeup artist). The Lord is now making me hold up the mirror to really examine myself without my foundation. I thought I was just enhancing my look, and the Lord is like “no, no, you thought you’re working on the set of The Walking Dead.” What a journey it’s been! And it ain’t over.

But in the process of washing off all of the caked layers of pretend perfection, I’ve discovered a gentle redeeming love and grace that allows me to look myself squarely in the face, observe my scars and discolorations, and call them good. I know that they are good because the Lord says so. I know that every scar and blemish has come from living, and is a testament to the hurt I’ve experienced (some of it self-inflicted). The scars are also a testament to God’s gentle love that has pulled me up and told me to continue on. Slowly but surely, God is showing me how to enhance, not mask. And that is foundation worth waiting on.