It’s day 8 of the series 31 Days of Lessons Learned from My 20’s. If you want to read all the posts in this series, you can find every post listed here. If you want to have all the posts delivered to your email inbox, subscribe here.

Since I was a teenager I’ve worn bright reddish lipstick. Not fire engine red but a close variation.

Even through the gloss era and the all-natural beige with a lip pencil trend, my lips have remained red. I wore the exact same shade on my lips on our wedding day as I wear every other day of the week.

One time when I was teaching school I was almost late getting to work, and I forgot to put on my red lipstick. A student came up to me that morning and asked if I was okay. When I assured him I was he told me that I just looked different – like I didn’t feel well. It was the absence of my red lipstick.

Red lipstick is my personal, signature color, my defining accessory. It’s what others have come to recognize me by, and it’s what makes me feel most comfortable in my skin. Red lipstick shows a bit of personality, makes me unique, and gives me substance.

It’s a symbol for the real me.

Everyone has a “red lipstick” in their lives.

No, not the kind in a tube that you use to color in your lips, but the kind inside yourself that colors your soul. It’s the real you. 

Your red lipstick is what makes you a fearfully and wonderfully made person with intricacies that no human mind can fathom. It’s your strengths, your weaknesses, your likes and your dislikes. It’s what makes your heart beat fast. It gives you purpose. It’s why God put you on this earth, and if you belong to Jesus it reveals Him.

There was a time during the neutral-lips-are-cooler era that I became embarrassed of my red lipstick. I wondered if I was out-of-date or if it made me look too old.

But not only did I question the color on my lips, I also questioned the kind that colors my soul. 

Desperately insecure I wanted to hide in a box where everyone looked the same. I didn’t want to think differently or talk differently or act differently.

So I asked God to allow me to be the same-ish as everyone else – lukewarm if you will. I told Him that I knew I belonged to Him. I was confident of my salvation. But I just didn’t want my red-lipstick self to stand out too much. I didn’t want to be know as the Bible-thumping girl.

For many years I lived this lukewarm life trying to blot my red lips so that no one would see the real me.

But God didn’t let me go.

You see, if you truly belong to Jesus, your red-lipstick-Jesus-self never goes out of style. The new creation you have become will always be your true self – the self where you feel most secure, peaceful, and content.

So here I am – red lipstick and all – writing to the world about Jesus. And I’ve never felt more stylish.

Lesson #8: Be yourself because you will never go out of style. 

What represents your “red lipstick” in your life? 

Photo Credit: Creative Commons: Mariam Boabbas