40-day Bare Face - Day 16: Mirrored

I'm getting used to it, I think.

A little bit.

I'm getting used to the bare face. It's been two weeks, and I'm no longer startled by my reflection. I've adjusted my morning routine to include more coffee and reading, two things I love just as much as red lipstick.

I'll concede it's made my day less complicated. I didn't really think about how many little checks and fixes it takes to keep everything in place for my long days, but I don't have to do it now. I just leave for the next thing without asking for permission from the Mirror.

With a mirror check, the real question is not whether my eyeliner strayed, or if my powder is uneven or if my lipstick has worn off.

The real question is will the next person I see be able to see me, or will they only see my mistakes? Will the first things they notice be all the ways I don't measure up? Isn't there anything I can do about that?

 No. 

I already know the answer to that. 

There is not enough lipstick in the world to cover over the ugly things I said. There is not enough mascara to open up my eyes so that I don't overlook someone. I can't pencil in unselfishness. Acceptance. Forgiveness. There is no purse with room enough to carry all the things I dropped when I wasn't paying attention. No cover-up for dark circles  takes away the need or grief that caused the sleeplessness.


I hadn't realized how much I begged the mirror for permission.


How much time I spend begging the wrong people and the wrong things for the permission to be the person God made me to be--the passionate, absent-minded, wordy, people-chasing, curious, beauty-stalking, methodical mess of a person who is desperate for Grace. 

I hadn't realized how many things I turned into a mirror. 

How many relationships, magazine pages, blogs, books, conversations, casual interactions I look at to check if I'm doing it right. If I'm enough.  If I'm living right.
 

How often I let the distortions in those mirrors define my view of what something God made is worth. How the most obvious features in those mirrors must be the ones at fault for why things just. aren't. working. If I just fix that bulging --whatever-- in my life, then I'll have peace. Then I'll have all the love I need to be ok.

But I already know, on Good Friday, someone threw a Rock and smashed all my mirrors. 

Someone who calls me "Beloved". 

Someone who will spit at the dirt and smear mud on my eyes so I can see for the first time. 

It's not makeup on my face this season, but ashes and now mud.  And it seems it may be a while before it's time to wash it off. 

But when my it is, I'll behold His face. 

And I won't have to ask any more questions.