Makeup or No Makeup That Is the Question… 😉 Part 2

In trying to come to terms with how to write about this, and allow the growth and understanding that I desire to continue, I have been pressed with the opposing philosophies or theories that rest on my heart and mind at this time.

A part of me leans to stating the “facts”, well, as I recall them anyway and simply saying that this is my opinion and personal reflection. The other, which comes from my study of A Course In Miracles, is to list the various deviant beliefs that I feel must have resided in the innermost part of my heart or sub-conscious to have allowed producing such sad and twisted circumstances in my hallucinatory world. To put it in the words of the gospel; what things did I need to overcome in my true spiritual being that needed these challenging circumstances to bring about that change in me? Life, as we live it, is all allowed by God and He is neither wasteful nor vindictive in my opinion. So the puzzle is there for me to unravel.

All that I seek to do in my sharing online through my blogs, etc comes because of my desire to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ and how it relates to me and my relationship with God, myself. This is in hopes of having better relationships with others, which I believe comes from having the two in alignment. Another way to describe my dilemma is found in 1 Nephi of The Book of Mormon and Lehi’s dream. He talks about the mists of darkness that man will find in this world, which is why he needs to hold on to the iron rod, understood to be the word of God. A Course In Miracles describes it as the illusion that the psyche of man has created for himself. I will be looking at my interpretation of some of the mist and illusion that I faced in my youth.

I am hesitant to bring other people’s stories in to mine but an earthly experience denotes other people are involved so I must share what I recall and can only do it with the enlightenment that I have at this time. I do not wish to attack, only to acknowledge. As I tried to describe above, I believe that the circumstances I find myself in are related to spiritual truths that I have warped and need to get straightened out so I can return to the full awareness of being one with God, the Lord, and the Holy Ghost. So basically, I owe the people involved in the challenges of my life a great debt of gratitude for without their participation I would not be able to see the false things that I have believed and correct them. (You do not have to agree with me. That is okay, I understand, it has taken me a long time to come to this place of understanding. And because I have a witness of it, I feel that I must testify of its truth, as I understand it at this time.)

I will use just a few short paragraphs to highlight the circumstantial situation of my youth. Be warned it will be rather heavy but there is a purpose in looking at it that I hope will become evident:

I started wearing makeup during the time when I got to meet with my biological mother, who lived in California, when I was about 11 years old. Being fair skinned, with freckles, and no color at all in my lashes or eyebrows it gave me a very different appearance, not to mention my youth. Even then I knew I lived in a world of my own creating. Only thing different now is that I am realizing that this is a truth of us as children of God and that He is the clarity, comfort, home, peace that we seek.

Mom had left my younger brother, by 15 months, and I with my father when the man she was with told her he did not want another man’s children. He shot himself about six years later and when she remarried a year later after he had died she found us and wanted us back in her life. Or so she thought. Remember she had a new husband who was getting used to life with her and the three children from her past marriage. I applaud them both for making the attempt. Sadly it lasted one month and I was sent back to my dad for a bad attitude (she threatened to send me back to my dad if I did not straighten up…I was home from my first day of suspension for fighting with a girl who had a reputation of fighting and felt very lost and vulnerable…so I mustered my self protecting shield and said, Go ahead. I was on a plane before I had a chance to say goodbye to my brother. I counted 400 Volkswagen beetle cars as she drove me to the airport. See, I had already learned mind tricks to get myself out of an impossible situation that I could not face.) and my little brother was adopted by the family he had been with for two years prior a month after I was sent home. (I have not seen any of them since that time.)

My father and step-mother (who came in to my life when I was 4 years old) where addicted to chemical substances, as well as verbal and emotional abuse, and my father also had a violent temper and insatiable sexual addiction. Details are not needed here to allow the resultant confusion that I was left with to be understood.

I was given an introduction to Christ when I was 4 years old by my step-mother. I knew that he was nearby. I had no problem knowing what she told me about him wanting to look after me was true. This is my first recollection of hearing the witness of the Holy Ghost. It was more as a feeling and concept rather than as words. Dad allowed her to take us to the local churches because he had made a promise to God that if he got his children he would see that they were taught about Jesus. I will be forever grateful to both of them for this.

Then there were the TV programs of the day. I was born in 1956. Just in time to get in on the youthful outrage and demand for freedom from authority and traditional roles and codes of conduct.  Father Knows Best was giving way to The Flintstones.

Next I want to consider what some of the beliefs that I held, that needed to be overcome, may have been in this:

• that I was not lovable
• that hurt and pain where an acceptable and expected part of being alive
• that I could be abandoned (physically, emotionally, spiritually, or any other way)
• that people could be taken away from you
• that I was responsible for other peoples woes, sanity, and well being
• that the human body was a tool for sex and sexual attraction and that this was a bad thing that could not be overcome
• that it was not okay for me to love others and that my loving them made them go away
• that it was okay to look good but in so doing I would be attracting or soliciting sexual interest which was bad
• sexual interest may be interpreted as love, either from me or toward me from another (It is astounding to me to think of how long I have retained this thought process in my mind. Even as a supposedly intelligent adult.)
• that somebody else had the answers and they would give me the instruction that I needed and that it might be found in cartoons or somewhere because the people I was living with “certainly” did not have it

Now, what I am trying to figure out here is what may be the subconscious things that I had misconstrued about truth, specifically in the pre-existence when as a spirit I was taught by Jesus and other spiritual peers. In other words I came to earth with these misconceptions. I would be given circumstances that would allow me to experience those possibilities and have the opportunity to understand they simply could not be possible as I grew in my understanding of the light in the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is my faith and belief anyway.

And believe it or not, a good portion of it pertains to my epiphany about makeup.

Till Part 3, God bless and please say your prayers and remember the Lord that you might have his spirit to be with you.

~Namaste