Where does your confidence come from?

Lent is a whole new concept for me. Among dancing, playing cards, and drinking, baptists don't celebrate Advent or Lent and never talk about it. But the past 2 years, I've decided to take part in the Lent season by giving up something sacrificially in an effort to draw my attention to God and fix my eyes on His own sacrifice for us.

This year, I gave up wearing makeup.

(brace yourself...) I'm sinful. I can be quite vain and prideful, and to go au natural is NOT ok. I've become ashamed of what my Father has given me and how He has created me. Heaven forbid that I go out for a quick errand without having taken a shower, put on makeup and done my hair. I'm very wrapped up in what I think people perceive of me, and I work hard to keep that in place. I've been told for years and years that this is how I'm supposed to look and anything short of that is undesirable. (Of course, not in spoken words, but that is the undercurrent of advertising and entertainment)

Every single woman knows exactly how hard this is and the baggage that comes with it. I didn't want to give up makeup myself, but when you hear a voice audibly tell you to give up something that you are terrified to even consider, its hard to shrug it off.

For the first 2 weeks, I was back in jr. high and dealing with all of those horrible memories and feelings of awkwardness that go along with having a different mindset than everyone else. ("If a guy is going to like me, he's going to like me for me and not how I look." Awesome heart, but I let society lie to me and feel ashamed of my natural look) Oddly, the scariest place for me to go was church, even though those should have been the people who would love me regardless.

But throughout the past 46 days, I've become more and more comfortable in my own skin and less apologetic for my "lack of self-care". This is the way my God created me!! This is what He originally intended! I'm not lazy or less-desirable because I don't look like everyone else. I feel more beautiful and confident in who God made me to be! I also feel like the treasured daughter in Christ that I am; I feel my Father's love in a deeper way. I'm pretty sure that beats anything I can buy at Target.

The question I've been asked the past few weeks from a few friends is if I'll go back to wearing makeup; I think I will, but I have an entirely different perspective about it. I'm not wearing as much, and I know I don't have to if I don't feel like it and it's not the end of the world if someone sees me without it. My confidence is in Christ!