Inner Beauty Day: Bold, Bare-faced and Beautiful
Becky Bader One girl. Two girls. Fifty girls. More.
They kept coming through my classroom door.
No, this isn’t the beginning of a nursery rhyme, but it is the beginning of a beautiful happily-ever-after story. Only it’s not make-believe either; it’s reality. And so much better than a fairy tale.
In my twenty-plus years of teaching, rarely have I dealt with situations that have left me speechless. I’ve heard stories of mamas making daddies sleep outside, of children without anything to eat for dinner, of teenage drinking parties in the pastures, and of kids running from the police. On the other hand, I’ve heard stories of God making himself known at camps, young girls determined not to have sex before marriage and older kids taking care of their siblings when there was no one else to do so. I’ve also seen chickens in a school locker, ceiling fans in the trees, and rats running down the halls. And as I’ve watched and listened and learned, I’ve been astonished and overwhelmed and concerned; but I rarely remember being speechless. Today, however, I was speechless.
One beautiful young senior girl walked in my classroom with a plan. She wanted to have a high school club called Inner Beauty. And once a week the girls in the club wouldn’t wear make-up. Would I sponsor the club? And it wasn’t just about the high school either. She wanted to visit the junior high and organize a club there as well for that’s where it begins. The desire. The need. The pressure. And the conformity.
She and another beautiful senior girl organized the whole thing. The meetings, the t-shirts, the announcements, and the signs. Before I knew it, there was a young men’s support group all about it.
Now stop for a minute and reflect and ponder and be awed with me. At a public high school! A place where addictions are made and insecurities are developed and traumatic events become embedded and….
I have to admit that amidst the admiration I felt, one nagging thought crept through my mind. Did that include me? Was I going to have to go without make-up one day a week? Surely, not. Not a fifty-six-year-old woman from a family of women who wore make-up even when they camped!
A week later we had our first meeting in my room. I stopped and bought two dozen doughnuts knowing that would be more than enough, but I’d give the rest to my first-period class.
One girl. Two girls. Fifty girls. More.
They kept coming through my classroom door.
Girls crowded at the door just to be able to peer inside the room. The boys acted as ushers, and the doughnuts disappeared in a flash.
Overwhelmed and near tears at what God can do, I sat in the back with my mouth open, yet once more speechless.
When I did speak, it was to promise more doughnuts. But the girls didn’t need that bribe even though they consumed six dozen the next week.
And the lingering idea that maybe I was going to have to go without makeup one day a week became more than a nagging thought; it became a conviction. Define hypocrite. I had gone the first two weeks and made excuses even though I can’t remember what they were and the girls never asked. But as I sat in the back of my room -- their Inner Beauty sponsor -- decked in my finest Murad and Glo Minerals, I knew my time had come. For God was speaking to me as clearly as only he can do at times.
A week later, the day arrived.
To prepare, I ate half of a chocolate chip cheesecake and had a facial the day before. Unfortunately, that wasn’t great timing as a facial usually breaks my face out before it makes it any better. Something about the impurities. I thought about taking that to a deeper level, but put it on hold. Ironically, now my face was as broken out as it had been when I was in high school forty years before. God has a sense of humor.
Boy, I was pumped! Not!
Waking up earlier than my normal 5:00 AM, I earnestly prayed for God to give me the courage to go through with it or take away the conviction, preferably the latter. Was this really necessary? Maybe I could call in sick; after all, I had eaten that cheesecake. Surely I would have a stomach ache.
My sweet, wonderful husband’s constant reassurance before I walked out the door didn’t help too much. In front of him, I have no problem. He has seen me that way every morning for 32 years plus we’ve known each other all our lives. He hates make-up. Calls it dog poo smeared on my face. He likes me without the dog poo.
Facing the workplace was another story. I don’t even go to the beach without make-up. Of course, I use the excuse that there is sunscreen in it. And thinking back, I think I wore make-up before I shaved my legs as I have a vague memory of sitting in church worried about the black hair sticking through my white fishnet hose even as I was adorned with my mother’s finest red Max Factor lipstick.
A quick prayer, another, and another; the conviction was real. One more piece of cheesecake for fortification (God would deal with that later on, I knew) and out the back door I went only to stumble and fall down the steps. Maybe subconsciously trying to avoid going to school by hurting myself? The stomach ache hadn’t worked; maybe the fall would!
I decided to give it a test run, so I detoured by Lange’s Convenience Store to grab a cup of coffee. So far, so good. I didn’t hear any comments like, “Are you sick?” or “Do you need to go to the hospital?” or “Shall I call 9-11?” I forced myself to look the checkout lady in the eyes to say thank you. No reaction from her either. I ran back to the car.
And almost cried on the way to school.
Since another teacher was pulling in the parking lot at the same time, I practically leaped out of my car in order to avoid greeting her face-to-naked face. Then once inside, I ran to the teacher’s workroom where I was immediately stopped by a senior AP student with a question about his paper. I stood in the darkened hallway without turning on the lights as I answered his question and wondered if he thought that was odd.
Hurrying to my classroom, I turned on only one of the overhead lights. OK. I will not look in a mirror. I will not look in a mirror. I will not look in a mirror. “Oh dear Lord, help me not to look in a mirror.” Mirrors show us the hairs that shouldn’t be there and the veins that weren’t there yesterday and the stress of going to school barefaced. Mirrors tell us what the world sees, not what God sees. Right now I only wanted God’s view and I needed God’s strength and God’s help. So I quickly texted my two sisters and best buddy for prayer support, and then I rummaged through the t-shirt box for a larger size.
The Inner Beauty Club has two pink shirts – one with I am beautiful quotes, the other with a thick black arrow pointing straight up, which was the only one in my size. To me, the arrow pointed at the face of a middle-aged woman with acne and rosacea who obviously wasn’t wearing make-up; to people from behind, the t-shirt read, “I’m above wearing make-up.” Either way, I needed another blood pressure pill. The cheesecake was at home. I wish I had brought it for a snack.
My school day was fixing to begin. Me. My pink shirt with the black arrow calling attention to my bare face. And fifty bold, beautiful young women who have more courage than their sponsor. “Lord, help me make it through this day.”
I’d like to tell you that the day got easier. It didn’t.
I’d like to tell you that God gave me the courage to get through it. He did.
I endured comments about how brave I was (cough!), but mostly I was appalled at what God showed me about myself. How obsessed I was with the way I looked; in fact, I never stopped thinking about it. How I had to bite my tongue to keep from explaining that I knew I looked terrible, but it was inner beauty day. How overly concerned I was with everyone’s opinion, assuming they were even thinking about me in the first place! And how judgmental I was. How the thoughts I was imagining other people having about me were really thoughts that I might be having about them - if the situation was reversed. If they were the ones without their make-up.
I was mortified at what God showed me. My inner beauty wasn’t so beautiful; it needed its own cleansing, the kind that comes from God. And thankfully, he is more merciful than we deserve.
And I also realized that for me this day wasn’t about make-up nor was it about trying to convince myself I was beautiful without it. Positive thinking is a good thing, but God is more than the power of positive thinking. With God, it is always more.
And God showed me plenty!
First, I recognized the obvious: I had grown so used to wearing make-up that taking it off in front of other people became a traumatic event. I was comfortable in my make-up. I wasn’t comfortable exposing my flawed face.
But wasn’t so obvious was how comfortable I had become with God. And I needed a jolt, a reminder that even though it’s good to feel good about being around Jesus, I also needed him to expose what needs to be exposed. To help me face the imperfections that I had covered up for so long, having grown accustomed to them and comfortable with them. Imperfections not on my face, but in my heart. And to deal with these flaws - even when it’s painful and traumatic.
I also realized that without makeup, I felt unprepared to face the world. I needed a reminder to rely on what God says about me. To esteem God’s Word more than I esteem the world’s view of beauty. To be reminded by the psalmist that it was God who “created my inmost being” and who “knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13). And that God’s works are wonderful.
This past summer our dog, who has entered his twilight years, had surgery. When his face and neck were swollen the next day, I took him to the vet, pointing out that his surgery has caused this unusual swelling and I wanted to know what to do about it.
The vet took one look at Riley and said, “That’s a snake bite.” I had diagnosed the problem as a result of the surgery; the expert knew immediately it was a snake.
On Inner Beauty day, I had done the same thing. I first diagnosed my reaction as a result of the media; the expert, however, knew otherwise. My problem wasn’t what the world thought about me; my problem was what I thought about me.
It was as easy to blame how insecure I was without my makeup on the media as it was for me to blame Riley’s problem on the vet.
The media’s influence in our lives is serious, directly contributing to our perception of what is beautiful; however, I can’t blame the media for the way I was viewing myself. Regardless of the media influence, I was absorbing it, which means I was paying too much attention to it. I was still the one doing the looking. I was the one who needed a reminder not to “conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2).
In the past I’ve joked with my students about what I want them to remember about me when I’m gone. Yes, I want them to remember the skills and strategies I worked so hard to teach them, but I also want them to remember the joy and that my favorite word is ebullience. I want them to remember how I got up on the desk and screamed, “Seize the day” and then tore up file folders in a pretty good imitation of Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society. I want them to remember how we went outside and wrapped ourselves in paper towels and then wrote all about it in creative writing class. I want them to remember my wacky witch imitation in Macbeth and blowing bubbles in the spring and even following people down the hall. I want them to remember all the crazy dancing and lots of laughing out loud - the real thing, that is, not just the letters LOL. And I want them to think of me like the lady holding the dessert fork knowing the best is yet to come.
But now, I hope they’ll add to those memories the time when I came to school without my make-up. And I pray they understand how huge that was for me – even if it seemed so simple. I pray they’ll understand it was God who gave me the conviction and the courage to do it. That for me, no make-up day was all about God. And that no part of our life is too frivolous for him to show us great things about himself, including his ability to see far beyond our surface and expose and diagnose what’s really wrong. For God puts his all in the small, seemingly insignificant details of our lives.
I’ve been ready to retire from teaching school for quite a few years now, but the timing hasn’t been right. I’ve prayed a long time about this and assumed that God still wanted me in the school. But today, I learned that I was the one who needed my students. For God pointed out -- through a group of bold, bare-faced and beautiful high school girls -- how I had let the worldly view of me become more important than God’s view of me.
Ironically, inner beauty day wasn’t supposed to have anything to do with me; it was all about the girls in our school. But God always accomplishes more than we can possibly imagine. And with God, more means more. He is perfectly able to deal with me individually while working with a group of young women who are making a difference in the lives of others around them. They started out by making a difference in mine!
In the meantime, inner beauty day was finally over and it was time to go home and finish the chocolate cheesecake. God doesn’t overload. He deals with one thing at a time!
Reader Comments (4)
Wow Becky. I would have felt the same. Thank you for sharing your story. God works in you and through you. You are a wonderful teacher both in and outside the classroom!
Wow, Becky ... we all needed this. Maybe it's not make-up, but whatever it is that we look at - or hide behind - instead of looking to God. Wow. Yep, I needed this. Thank you.
And I am laughing at you with your mother's red Max Factor lipstick, and thinking about your sister! She takes that stuff very seriously, too, doesn't she?!
I am so glad I stumbled on your blog. I'll continue to read. Hope to see you soon!
Hi, Lisa! I'm glad you stumbled on my blog, too. My plan is to post one chapter a week from my book - Like a Sweet Fragrance - and I'd apperciate any feedback. Hope to see you soon. I think the last time was at Elsie's 90th birthday. Maybe we need another party in January!
Hi, Beth. Thanks so much for your words. How fortunate we are that we don't go to work by ourselves! I'm hoping to have my next chapter posted tomorrow. I hope you'll read it and give me your feedback. :)