When I was 12 years old I started struggling with depression and anxiety, it eventually became a stronghold and no amount of therapy, antidepressants, etc could save me, only God could. And only God could give me deliverance. I started smoking weed, drinking alcohol, and cutting myself at 14 years old. I eventually couldn't even go a day without cutting myself, I was addicted to it, and I would cut myself 4 times a day or more at times. I believed the lies of the enemy when he told me I should kill myself, I was unworthy, no one liked me, and I ended up trying to commit suicide and staying in a mental hospital twice for a suicide attempt and also for my self harm addiction. At 16 years old I had already started doing harder drugs and was smoking weed everyday. But something happened to me when I was 17 years old, I began to hear God speak to me, God didn't speak to me audibly yet, but the Holy Spirit was tugging on my heart, and the Holy Spirit started telling me that I had to make a choice: God or drugs. 

My ex boyfriend had just broken up with me, my twin sister was psychotic from drugs, and a friend of mine had just died from drugs, it felt like my whole world was crashing down on me, and in that time of grief God kept asking me what I would choose by tugging on my heart: drugs or life? I knew I was going to die if I didn't get sober and had this feeling like death was around the corner, and if I did drugs again I was going to die. Without even realizing I was accepting Jesus in my heart, I did, by choosing to never touch drugs again and choosing life. Deuteronomy 30:19 "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live."

The doctors told my family my twin sister would never recover or be the same again. She was in a mental hospital for 2 months and when she got out she still didn't know the difference between reality and her delusions, in the most painful time of my life, I didn't just turn to God but I turned to makeup. I grieved for 2 weeks as if my twin sister had died, it was horrible to grieve for someone I loved and yet the person still existed but was not the same. But during that time of grief and pain, my best friend at the time gave me a ton of free makeup, I had no idea how to use it, but she told me to watch makeup tutorials on youtube, and she also did my makeup for me a couple times, and showed me how to do my makeup. I remember praying and asking God if He would give me the ability to be good at makeup, and He answered that prayer but it took me 2 years of practicing everyday to see a difference. God delivered me from my self harm addiction, drug use, depression, etc, but He delivered me from that through makeup. And when I ask myself why He used makeup to do that, I know the answer: purpose. That time I spent applying and playing with makeup gave my life meaning. It gave me purpose. It gave me a reason to get out of bed in the morning because I was excited to pick up that makeup brush again. With makeup, I found freedom, not just in Christ, but  because there were no limits. I could do the craziest, most colorful, smokey eye you had ever seen, and if I messed up or didn't like it, I could wash it off and try again the next day. And as I fell in love with makeup, I started to fall in love with Jesus. 

Those times of first learning to do my makeup and teaching myself how to apply makeup are so precious to me. In that time I had of doing my makeup and getting ready in the morning, God would speak to me. I could feel Him close to me as I was doing my makeup. Doing my makeup now is still the same to me, it's always when God speaks to me. Doing my makeup is an act of worship, every time I do my makeup I listen to a sermon, my audio Bible, or listen to worship music, and it's time that I get to be alone with God, worship Him, and press into Him.

If God could take my ashes and turn them into beauty, how could me doing free makeovers turn other women's ashes into beauty? Maybe in that moment of getting their makeup done, God tugs on their heart like He tugged on mine. Maybe He uses makeup to heal them just like He did for me. And maybe He speaks to them and ministers to their hearts.