Skip to main content

Lipstick marks on coffee cup lids.


This is one of those posts where I'm riskilly honest.  The kind where I don't sound politically correct but I hope you'll hear me out.  Where I admit things I'm not proud of.
Ready?  Okay. 
I used to ABHOR lipstick marks on coffee mug lids (as can be seen in photo below).  There, I said it.


Now the funny thing to me is that the cup with the lipstick marks on the lid that you see in the picture belongs to none other than yours truly.  So let me explain.  

I used to be the girl who subconsciously thought she was better because she didn't need lipstick to feel pretty or 3 coats of mascara just to leave the house.  I was proud to only wear a little bit of makeup (or none at all) and still feel like I looked like my normal, averagely pretty self.  When other girls talked about needing to reapply lipgloss or eyeliner, (especially in front of guys) I made it a point to not be lumped into their shallow activity and went out of my way to make it apparent that my beauty was Au Naturale.

I wasn't a tomboy, and I didn't dislike all makeup, just the kind that could portray me as a poseur.

And that was the root of the matter.  I was so concerned with not being a big phony that I looked down my non-powdered nose on others for something I wasn't caught up in.
(If you don't wear much or any makeup, please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you should start or that you have the same mindset as I once did toward it.  I'm just telling you my story.)

And then I started a job I never EVER saw myself working- a sales representative for a makeup company.  
And my perspective slowly started to change.  

I got to know the people behind the counters with the contoured faces and the fake eyelashes and the deceptively large lips.  I learned about their families and sisters and parents and pets and vacation plans.  We were together in the mornings before we filled our eyebrows in or primed our faces.  I listened to their hopeful stories of moving to bigger cities and told them I was sorry when the plans fell through.  I was bored alongside them and busy alongside them and we suffered low sales and the busy season.  I pulled tissues when they came back from very bad family vacations.  I got excited to ask them to help me and my bridesmaids with our makeup for my wedding.

I also got to know the women who wander into the beauty stores, sometimes striking quite a resemblance with the people we see in those journalistic pictures, waiting to receive dehydrated food from Unicef.  
I saw the scars and the birthmarks and the discolorations.  I handed them tissues when something inside them broke and they couldn't keep the tears from brimming over their freshly lined eye rims.  I met the lady who went through 3 surgeries and came out alive after a battle with brain cancer, which was only discovered because her husband beat her so badly that her brain was exposed.  I've heard the words "you made my day" more than once in a single day.

Those lipstick marks on cups don't disgust me anymore.
They remind me of my friends, these people I've grown to have a love for.
They remind me of the beautiful work He has already done in some of their hearts and lives.
They remind me of some of the most genuine and sweet people I know, some of who are still very hurt and lost and aimless.
This might sound dramatic, but seeing those lipstick marks actually moves my spirit and almost gives me goose bumps because I know that God knew what He was doing when he put me where he did.  When He plopped me down, smack dab in the middle of a makeup counter with gloss on my lips and a brush belt around my hips.
When I see those lipstick marks on cups, I can't help but be moved by the love that the Lord has put into my heart for my co-workers.
Those bright red lip prints serve as a reminder of how bad the Lord wants them to know the love He has for these women with the electric red lips and contoured cheekbones.


Popular posts from this blog

Seasons: The Future

So about the future.  I obviously don't know it so it makes sense that this one might be a little shorter (or longer-it could logically go either way, I just went with shorter). There are litterally (at least) a hundred different ways it could go. After the internship I'm doing, I might stay on there. Or I might come back here. If I come back here I could work, go away to college, take classes from home, live with my parents, move out with some friends, get some kind of certification and work a more specific job, come back to the office job I have now, etc. Or I could move to CA and live with some family and find a job with some distant cousins. Or I could move to some other random state and adventure there. The list of possibilities goes on and on. What sounds best to me right now is to do one of the aforementioned options that have to do with moving back here but we really will see won't we.

Thankful Thursday: Sweet heart hurts.

I was going to say "Happy Thursday to you!"  And if you're having a happy Thursday, good for you.  In the sense of wishing someone a happy day I suppose I do wish you that.  However,  I do not mean that I feel happy on this Thursday. So maybe more like "Thoughtful and introspective Thursday!" Doesn't sound as nice as "Happy Thursday" but that's okay. I'm not particularly happy on this Thursday and for fear of tempting you to judge whether or not my reason for not being happy is legitimate or not (some people feel like they have that position, you know) I won't go into the details of why. I will say that I miss somebody today.  More than just one; I miss him and his whole family. Without going into more detail on that, I'll tell you that my heart hurts today.  The why is irrelevant for the sake of what I'm trying to say; but it does hurt. There are at least two kinds of heart hurts I think: ( There is good news though beca...

What Really Matters

  Monday, October 22, 2012:  The date that I originally put this picture in a draft and saved it with the title "It's for real." I thought I was going to a place called the International House of Prayer in Kansas City for an internship.  I thought it was for real. I could barely believe it myself because I was planning to do something very far outside of my comfort zone, but it was for real.    I was going to be moving away from my family, hometown, most of my friends, and the familiarity of what I've spent the last 7 years knowing life to be. I'm not writing this post to tell the story of what happened or why in March, I'm still here, living with my family in my hometown with most of my friends and that familiarity still surrounding me. While I could explain the mental process of my decision not to go, I cannot tell you why I'm here instead of there right now, because even I don't know. I know that in c...