Makeup is Fun

    "Makeup is supposed to be fun," I said to myself after playing with my new eyeshadow pallet. 

    This is the mindset I want to have going forward. Enjoying it for myself and not for impressing others or because I am self-conscious without it on. It is not wrong to want to impress others of course, except if that is the only reason you are wearing it. When my husband and I started dating he told me he liked red lipstick on me. So I went and bought red lipstick and it has been a staple in my makeup collection ever since.

    When I first went into my bathroom and started building a look from my new pallet, I was a bit nervous because I did not have any instructions to help me. I like instructions when it comes to eyeshadow. All I knew was that I wanted to use the light sparkly pink, big surprise right. ;)

    So that is what I did, I dipped my brush into the pink and started applying it to my eyelid, and slowly added other colours. It was a struggle at one point and I thought I looked like a clown and then reminded myself it was okay, because not only it is a fun pallet, but no one ever has to see it if I do not want them to. As you can imagine this helped me relax and continue enjoying the process.

    My grandmother once told me that makeup should be used as a tool to highlight your features and that it should not be really obvious that you are wearing it. I was thirteen or fourteen at the time, an impressionable age for young girls, mind you, every age is impressionable. Solid advice though. As an adult, I will add my two sense to it though. "There is a time and a place for every makeup look for every age of girl." Some days you want a simple look for work or school and other times you want more colour for fun, and each is good in its way.

    Over the last few weeks (since I wrote this post in my journal) I have been personally challenged about making sure I am wearing makeup for myself and not for others. Not only am I enjoying it all the more now that I have taken off the pressure of pleasing others, but it has also permitted me to have the days where all I do is my eyebrows and mascara and enjoy those days as much as the days where I finally master the perfect "Smokey eye". Before when I was wearing makeup to impress others and get compliments, I would be thinking about it all day. Now on the days when I do my eye makeup and wear eyeshadow and everything else I enjoy putting it on in the morning and I forget about it all day because it is for me now and not for others.

    So, if you enjoy wearing makeup, do it, but do it for yourself, not for the approval of others.

    As always I hope this post blesses you today.

God Bless

~Ruth

Today's photo is of the fun pallet that I wrote about today. I am trying my hand at object photography.

God Provides

     Two weeks ago I was on holiday and went up North to visit my parents. At the end of my visit, we had our first annual family chili cook-off. After the cook-off, my sister, Rae, and family lovingly agreed to drive me back to their home which is halfway between my home in Cambridge and our parents in Sudbury. Our original plan was for my husband to meet me at my sister's house and take me home. But, as we all know, plans do not always go accordingly. 

    We had just left Sudbury, we were fifteen minutes onto the highway when we discovered we had a flat tire. As we pulled over the tire broke completely, it looked like someone had taken a knife to it and sliced it. So somehow we went from having a flat tire to have a slash in the tire. So we all climb out of the vehicle and start prepping to change the tire. 

    As we stand on the side of the highway, I'm watching Rae's boyfriend, Dave, change the tire (yes, both Rae and I can change a tire, but we let Dave do it instead). It starts to rain, and not just spitting, it's raining hard. So while I'm standing in the rain, getting soaked and feeling rather useless because it only takes one person to change a tire, I start praying. I asked God to take care of us and provide for us. What I was really praying for was the rain to stop. While I was praying God answered and said, "I am providing for you, just not in the way you want." and I responded with, "yeah, that's fair."  I just wanted to rain to stop and for us to get back on the raid. God provided us with the knowledge and the resources to change the tire and it was done successfully and within a reasonable time frame.

    It is funny though how when we pray for guidance and provision we already know what we want God to do, we have already figured out what we need or at least what we think we need. Thankfully God knows best though and already has it all figured out long before we know we need help. It is one of the many amazing things about God, He already knows what is going to happen, all we have to do is be obedient and follow Him. Yes, I know that is easier said than done.

    The point being though is that God always provides. We do not have to worry about anything because God is with us. I recently learned that the words "do not worry" are written 365 in the Bible. Sound familiar? God is telling us not to worry every day all year long. Pretty cool if you ask me. And yes, we all worry, we would not be human if we did not worry, it is what we do with that worry that counts. God wants us to bring our worry, pain, suffering, and everything else to Him because He wants to comfort us. Because He is our Heavenly Father and He is a good father.

    He also never changes. I was praying over something recently and doubting a little that God would come through and then I reminded myself of what God tells me in His word. He said He will never change. "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever." Hebrews 13:8 KJV. Meaning that if He provided for me yesterday or last week or even five years ago, He will still provide for me tomorrow and until the day He calls me home. I cannot speak for the rest of you, but that brings me comfort knowing that I can always depend on God.

    So as we were finishing up the tire change the rain stopped. I know, funny right, who said God does not have a sense of humor. Then the next bit of reality set in, because we were now driving on a spare tire, they are not the same as regular tires. Meaning that you cannot drive the same speed on them nor drive for very long. So instead of this part of my journey home taking four hours tops, it took us seven and a half which of course resulted in my arrival back to Cambridge being a whole lot later than expected, but that is a story all on its own and for another day.

    The lesson for today friends is that God always provides. It may not look the way we had hoped, but we can rest in God knowing that He is in control and is always with us. 

    Wherever this post finds you today, whether you are going through a rough season in a valley or on top of a mountain I hope that this post blesses you, as it blessed me to go through this situation and maybe even give you a laugh. I am enjoying using this platform to combine my writing and photography hobbies together. Thank you for reading and journeying with me.

    God Bless

    ~Ruth

Today's photo was taken by my mom, of Blessing and I at a lookout point on the "Cup and Saucer" trail on Manitoulin Island, during our holiday.