Day 45: The Darkness Does Not Overcome The Light

Yesterday, I took down the poster boards on my mirrors and waited for my husband to get home so that he could hug me while I looked at myself for the first time in 6 weeks. The experience has been jarring. I have a lot of hyperpigmentation marks in the area around my smile-lines and I swear when I first saw myself I thought I might faint. I've never had so many marks at one time and it honestly felt shocking and humiliating.

However, my husband and I got to talking and, as he assured me that things have definitely been improving, I realized something: Maybe shock and humility aren't negative things. I realized that I still desire to be perfect and pretty more than I'm desiring more important things. This is my problem. I cannot be who God made me to be if I desire superficial things more than I'm desiring to be a vessel for Him.

So this morning I got up and had to relive the shock once again in my bathroom mirror. A big part of me wants to start looking up home remedies for how to fade dark marks from acne and work to do all the restoration work myself. However, the actual active acne I have on my face is very minimal and not at all severe. I basically have 2-3 whiteheads and a bump underneath the skin that has been slowly going away for about a week. The rest is just uneven tone. Feeling scared and hopeless at the state that I'm in, I knew the only way I could keep going, knowing now what I actually look like, would be to fully rely on God.

I sat down with my morning smoothie and decided to catch up on some of our church's sermons that I had missed when we went to visit family in California. This sermon is the one I heard this morning. Honestly, I listened and made notes in my book during most of the message, but when I got toward the very end, something profound hit me:

God wants to restore me to the Light.

All of these fears and anxieties are just the darkness of the world. I am living in a dark, sinful place, but I am of the Light and I have to choose to be of the Light every day. God has made me the way I am for a purpose and a calling. He can use me today, no matter what I look like, to serve His purpose in restoring the world. I don't need to be afraid, anxious, or fearful of if I'll ever free myself from my "little skin problem;" I just need to really believe that He's got it under control. Just because I haven't seen the kind of improvement I've expected on my own timeline, doesn't mean God isn't working on me.

It is scary to realize what your true idol is, and yesterday I realized that my true idol has been the desire for perfect skin. I have put all of my time and energy into achieving that goal rather than giving it fully to a God that can do anything. I want it so bad that I'm waiting to get it before I feel I can really be used by God.

So I got down on my knees.

And I cried long and hard about the darkness that I've allowed to live inside of me.

I spoke to my God with real honesty and brokenness and a truly humbled heart.

I asked Him to forgive me for making such a superficial thing my idol and I asked for Him to use me just the way I am. I told him I knew I couldn't do it on my own and I prayed for the strength to be a part of His mission on earth and not my own. I want to be part of the restoration of the world and let God take over the restoration of my body.

He told me to rest and relax. He told me to share His message. He told me to stop being afraid.

This experiment has been the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, but I also think it has been the biggest learning experience. Only from true brokenness can restoration take place, and I have to believe that God is making me new on His timeline and not my own. I have to believe that there is something useful about my pain and brokenness today. I have to believe I am exactly what He made me to be and I have to let go of the need to be perfect.

Besides, when God sees me, He sees the perfection of Jesus, not the many imperfections of Kylie. So today I pray that I will walk in the restoration and Light of Jesus and not under my own control.