Day 17: Learning to Fly

If you fly often, you know what it feels like to take off and land. Next time you fly, try this:

Close your eyes when the airplane is close to landing. Keeping them closed, try to anticipate the moment when the landing gear touches the pavement. You’ll begin to notice even the slightest turbulence in your descent as the plane drops steadily to the ground. You’ll start to think in each moment that the wheels are just about to touch. You’ll think you know exactly where you are and what’s happening, but the reality is you don’t.

I’m becoming strangely familiar with this feeling. I find myself imagining my own reality and living in that version of my life. I feel as if by reaching the halfway point in this journey I’ve somehow reached my peak and now I’m heading into the descent.

It has been 17 days since I’ve looked at myself in a mirror, washed my face, or worn makeup. In some ways, I feel incredibly free. I feel that the notion of my experiment somehow provides me with some sort of explanation to the world as to why I would be running around in a state that is generally considered “unacceptable” by modern standards. In other ways, however, I find myself lost in my own vulnerable state, counting the minutes until I can go home, get in bed and check one more day off the list.

To the experiment’s credit, the actual “regimen” is very easy to follow. When I chose to jump in and trust God, I felt as if I only had to make the decision once. I committed to doing this challenge in several ways. I began telling friends and family about it, which I found made the commitment more solid in my mind. I knew if other people were somehow “in on it,” I would have to make it through the full 30 days. I committed to God by listening to His assurance that this would change me in many ways. I committed to myself because I wanted to believe I could be more than my appearance. From there, I just simply avoided putting anything on my face.

I am able to get out of the house much faster these days and, although it is still often on my mind, I am able to put myself out there at work, church, and other functions and feel the empowerment in it. I am not always comfortable and I’m often wondering what the people I’m talking to are seeing on my face, but I’m slowly finding that I am letting go of it. The truth is, once I’m out, there is no running away to compulsively “throw my face on.” I don’t have that armor anymore and I have to keep going through my day without it. It feels truthful, as if I have been hiding my true self this whole time, disguising the way God actually created me, trying to change and alter the design of a perfect Creator. When I think of it that way, it is hard for my flesh to argue against the Spirit.

So maybe the lesson is just like flying. I’m not a qualified pilot, so I would have no idea how to fly a plane if you threw me in a cockpit. In fact, I’d probably mess quite a few things up trying to figure it out. Instead, I’m sitting in the main cabin with my eyes squeezed closed putting all my trust in the One who’s flying this plane. I can try to figure out where I am, what’s going on, and when I’ll touch ground, but the truth is only my Pilot knows.