What do you look like without makeup? If you are a man, you would say — what you see is what you get! But if you are a woman, you may feel a bit squeamish, insecure even. Having spent years working in the modeling industry, I always felt that I was “not good enough” bare-faced. On jobs, makeup artists dramatically transformed my face with the exacting strokes of their brushes. After a few hours in the makeup (and hair) chair, then, I was “camera-ready.” If someone told me we were going to take pictures with no makeup on at all, I would turn my back!

In the Old Testament, Moses put a veil over his face to mask the intense radiance that came from having met with God. The veil kept people from being terrified from the brightness of his face, and represented the veiling of the people’s minds to understanding the ways of God. But in 2 Corinthians 3:16-18, Paul explains that when we put our faith in Christ, God removes the veil. We become free to fully “see” and understand the Scriptures, and free to be ourselves before the Lord. We are completely unmasked.

In the modeling world, beauty is manufactured through covering up, but in God’s world, real beauty comes from laying it all out. The more our weaknesses show, the more He reveals His strength. If we let Him, God literally takes off our masks, and we become unable to pretend all is perfect beneath the veneer. Sometimes what he reveals underneath the mask is not pretty at all — there are fears, insecurities, bitterness and anger that have festered for far too long. But this is where the great love of God comes in: if we let Him shine His light into the dark places within us, Christ’s blood washes over our imperfections and sins, and gives us the power to be fully human, fully flawed, yet beautiful at the same time.

As we look to Him with unveiled hearts and unveiled faces, He begins to transform us from the inside out. We begin to reflect a glory not our own. And the more He fills us — through prayer and time in His Word, the more we naturally radiate His love to the people in our midst.

No matter what you are facing today, you can be the radiant face of Christ in someone’s life. Let His light shine through you. You never know how the Spirit may touch someone else and change them for eternity. Now that’s what I call beautiful.

The Word teaches that real beauty comes from the inner self. This is great news on days when we feel ugly. In fact, 1 Peter 3:3 (on right) is one of the major reasons I left the modeling industry — because while everyone else critiqued the outside, God loved the girl within.

While I’m glad my worth in God’s eyes is beyond the flesh, this verse also troubles me. Unfading beauty, it reads, is rooted in a “gentle and quiet spirit.” That’s the problem: I don’t have a gentle and quiet spirit. I’m passionate and opinionated. When I’m really mad, I’ve been known to yell. “Gentle” and “quiet” aren’t the first words to describe me!

Some days it seems Botox, hair extensions, a personal trainer, plastic surgery, a new set of clothes and miracle makeup would be easier avenues to beautiful. But this is an endless battle: it’s the world’s way of chasing an “unfading” physical beauty that is unattainable anyway. While I’m not against looking our best — in fact I’m all for it — sometimes focusing on the physical is a serious distraction from dealing with the woman within.

Recently I asked some trusted friends to name the traits of a truly beautiful woman. They answered with words like peace, joy, patience, faithfulness, compassion, love, unselfishness, kindness. We all know women who have a beauty like this: there is a sparkle in their eye that speaks of a deep joy, a deep peace. They overflow with the kind of unselfish love that draws us to them. They may not look like a Revlon model, but they have a beauty that lasts. By knowing them, we are changed and inspired.

Lashing out at someone I love always makes me feel uglier than having my face broken out or flesh bulging from jeans that used to fit. Deep inside, it hurts when a loved one needs me to have a “gentle and quiet” spirit and I have anything but. As 1 Corinthians 4:21 says, we choose how to react: we can come at someone as with a “whip” or in gentleness and love. Obviously love is the better choice, but that doesn’t mean we get it right every time.

Here’s the good news: the fruit of the Spirit as defined in Galatians 5 lists every attribute my friends described as real beauty. The spirit Paul refers to in 1 Peter 3:3 is not the natural human spirit, but Christ’s Spirit in us. What is beautiful to God? A woman who hopes in him. A woman whose heart is open for him to fill it. The more we open ourselves to be filled, the more our character is transformed. The less we are like our selfish humanity and the more we become like Christ, who is radiant with perfect beauty (He 1:3; Ps 50:2).

The other day I was very frustrated with my daughter and felt like lashing out. But something extraordinary happened: I opened my mouth, and loving, kind words flowed from it. Something miraculous takes place when we ask God to give us a beauty that lasts — we make a ton of mistakes, and then we have moments like this, when his Spirit takes over. We begin to see and enjoy the sweet fruit of his love shining through us.
Finally, we care less and less about looking a certain way and realize that acting a certain way can be much more attractive . . . even when no one is watching.

My feet have never been my best feature. Let’s just say no one has ever called them remotely attractive. But like God does with so many things the world calls ugly, God says they are beautiful. Yes, he says my long, dry feet with their gnarled toes are beautiful. How sweet of Him.

Isaiah 52:7 says, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation ….” This verse reminds me of the precious people who introduced me to Christ. They were strangers in a foreign land. They had no idea who I was, what I’d been through or what I needed. And yet, they opened their mouths and spoke. They opened the doors of their church and invited me in. They opened their hearts and offered food when I was hungry and the Word to satisfy the cravings of my soul. They brought good news and good tidings; they proclaimed peace and salvation. Their faith became action, and that changed the direction of my life … on earth, and for eternity.

Ephesians 6:15 says our feet must be fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In other words, we need to be ready to step forward in faith. We need to ask God to give us eyes to see those who are hurting and lost, and ears to hear when he is asking us to speak, and when he’d rather we be silent. The gospel comes with a readiness: every day, our world is filled with bad news. People still need to hear the good news!

The good news is that Jesus died to set us free from our sins, our pasts, and from the endless demands of the world. The good news is that through faith in Christ, we can know God and walk with him now and forever.

But don’t stress about it. It’s not about us. It is not we who change lives; it is Him through us. All we have to do is be open vessels through which He can work. Are you open? Are you open to the great adventure of being a vessel for God? I’ll tell you, if you are … how beautiful are your feet. How beautiful are you!

What do you look like without makeup? If you are a man, you would say — what you see is what you get! But if you are a woman, you may feel a bit squeamish, insecure even. Having spent years working in the modeling industry, I always felt that I was “not good enough” bare-faced. On jobs, makeup artists dramatically transformed my face with the exacting strokes of their brushes. After a few hours in the makeup (and hair) chair, then, I was “camera-ready.” If someone told me we were going to take pictures with no makeup on at all, I would turn my back!

In the Old Testament, Moses put a veil over his face to mask the intense radiance that came from having met with God. The veil kept people from being terrified from the brightness of his face, and represented the veiling of the people’s minds to understanding the ways of God. But in 2 Corinthians 3:16-18, Paul explains that when we put our faith in Christ, God removes the veil. We become free to fully “see” and understand the Scriptures, and free to be ourselves before the Lord. We are completely unmasked.

In the modeling world, beauty is manufactured through covering up, but in God’s world, real beauty comes from laying it all out. The more our weaknesses show, the more He reveals His strength. If we let Him, God literally takes off our masks, and we become unable to pretend all is perfect beneath the veneer. Sometimes what he reveals underneath the mask is not pretty at all — there are fears, insecurities, bitterness and anger that have festered for far too long. But this is where the great love of God comes in: if we let Him shine His light into the dark places within us, Christ’s blood washes over our imperfections and sins, and gives us the power to be fully human, fully flawed, yet beautiful at the same time.

As we look to Him with unveiled hearts and unveiled faces, He begins to transform us from the inside out. We begin to reflect a glory not our own. And the more He fills us — through prayer and time in His Word, the more we naturally radiate His love to the people in our midst.

No matter what you are facing today, you can be the radiant face of Christ in someone’s life. Let His light shine through you. You never know how the Spirit may touch someone else and change them for eternity. Now that’s what I call beautiful.

The other day I went to an esthetician to ask what could be done about this sudden breakout on my forehead, cheeks and chin. What is this horrible mess?? I asked her. Hormones? Stress? Allergies? What can you do about it? Laser? Peels? Treatments? She looked me straight in the eye and said, “Honey, what you need to do is stop looking in the mirror.” Stop looking at all that is “wrong” with you. Stop worrying about it. Stop focusing on it. Her recommendation? Spend quiet moments in reflection; spend time doing what you love. And don’t look in the mirror. This seemed an odd thing for someone in a dermatologist office to say.

Of course I wanted her to give me a quick fix – a pill, a peel, a prescription (I’m not sure why – I’d already tried all that, and none of it worked!). What I didn’t realize at the time is that she gave me the greatest prescription of all: a fast from the mirror. Permission to enjoy my life despite the imperfections. What she couldn’t have known is that it would transform me completely.

In the last forty days, I have gotten ready for the day, then avoided the mirror at all costs. I’ve had to adjust the rear view mirror in my car because I realized it was angled just so I could take quick glances at my forehead – worrying about how I looked to people that day. I’ve realized how much I glance at my reflection in windows, that I even look past people to do a “quick check.” As horrible as it may sound, I’ve had to retrain myself to stop looking at me, and focus more on the world around me and people in my midst.

Instead of looking in the mirror in the morning, I’ve looked into the Word. Instead of bowing my head in shame that I do not measure up to my own expectations, I’ve bowed my head in prayer. During the day, I’ve let the house go, I’ve let my hair go, and I’ve gotten down and laughed and played with my kids; at night, I’ve crawled into bed to snuggle with my husband rather than agonize over my ever-changing reflection in the mirror. And whenever possible, I’ve taken long walks with God, marveling over His creation. Patiently and lovingly, he has helped me take off that heavy cloak of always making sure I look okay, and has reminded me of how I look to Him above all else.

In the majesty of His creation, I have seen a new reflection. Like every tree, lake, mountain, and flower He’s made, we are each beautiful and unique by design. Every detail in us – even that which we may see as a “flaw” – has a purpose that we may or may not ever realize. He made us with painstaking love, precision and care; we are his hand-made treasures, his handiwork, his poetry in a world that desperately needs to see the beauty of God. When we get this, our identity rests not in what constantly changes – like the mirror – but instead in that which never changes: His love.

In the reflection of His Word, He has shown me that when my face is a mess and life is a mess and house is a mess, I am no less beautiful and valuable to Him than I am on a good hair day! We see this in Luke 7, when one of my favorite women of the Bible comes bawling at Jesus’ feet in front of a bunch of proud Pharisees. She is so hysterical and weighed down by her failings that she uses her hair to mop up the tears that she sheds on Jesus’ feet. While all the Pharisees shun her poor behavior, Jesus tells them in essence: I love this mess! I love this woman just as she is right now! (Go, Jesus!) He forgives her, blesses her with peace, and sets her free. We are not our imperfections. We are not our sins. We are not our failings, and we are not our flaws. We are His creations. His beloved. His daughters. Free to walk in His love, regardless of what we look like and what we feel like at this moment in time. And nothing can ever take that away from us.

Ever since I was a little girl, I have always felt that I had to be as beautiful as the women in magazines . . . and I have never seemed to be able to measure up to the world’s expectations. Having acne in my thirties has forced me to turn away from that destructive perfectionism, to come to grips with the fact that I will never be perfect and neither will anything in the world, save His love. Through this trial, God has broken my pride, humbled me, and ultimately drawn me to cling to Him for my identity. He has become the source of my beauty. He has become the source of my strength. He has given me a beauty of the heart: a ready laugh, a hope for the future. A beauty that grows stronger, not weaker, with time.

Oh, and by the way, after forty days of not looking in the mirror, I allowed myself to linger there a little longer last night – and all I saw was my eyes. They were sparkling. I looked younger, happier . . . there was a light there that has been unearthed once again. People keep telling me how much better my skin looks. I wouldn’t know. I assume it’s His love shining through me. It must some kind of . . . beauty beyond the mirror.