Red Lipstick

No, this is not a stock photo. This is a picture that I took the other day of my actual lipsticks. (Judge not lest you be judged!) Men, you may not appreciate this one, but I’m sure the ladies will.

Being the compliant and cautious temperament that I am, I’ve been very consistent in wearing my mask during this time of pandemic. But even though I have a mask on, I still want to wear my lipstick underneath. You know… just in case I need to take the mask off even for a few seconds. I learned very early on during this pandemic that lip glosses were completely not an option, and regular lipstick required you to keep your lips tucked in the entire time you had a mask on. So, matte ended up being my go-to option for months. Until one day somebody asked me to take a picture with them. I removed the mask, took the picture, and put the mask right back on. A few days later they sent me a copy of the picture and I screamed, “Why didn’t anybody tell me I looked like Bozo the Clown?” Lipstick was speared all outside my lip line!

So, imagine how excited I was when a few weeks later I came across a lip stain on one of my infrequent trips to the store. I tried it the very next day. I was able to apply it once, freely talk while wearing a mask, and it did not smear nor color the inside of the mask.  Now that’s what I’m talking about! It was my new best friend! I wore it every time I left the house… until… last week… when it ran out! Ugghhh!

I went back to the store I originally purchased it, and it was nowhere to be found. I tried a couple other places, all to no avail. I finally thought, surely I already have a lipstick or a lip stain that will work just as well. So, when I got back home, I started looking through what I already had. The more I looked, the more lipsticks I realized I had. The more I realized I had, the more I was prompted to look in all the places I had tubes stashed. 

The bulk of them were in my jewelry box turned lipstick caddy. Of course I had to check my purse, where I found three more. Right next to my purse were three lipsticks still in the bag that I just bought during my search for lip stain. Then I remembered I had a tube or two in my work bag. When I got to the office the next day, it dawned on me that I had a tube in my desk drawer. By the time I gathered all the tubes from all the places and put them in one pile, I realized I had enough to play one of those party guessing games! (Hmmm… That may not be a bad idea!)

Now, this is way more lipstick than I could ever use in my entire lifetime! Most of it is old and needs to be thrown out. Many of them are brand new and have never been opened. Several of them I tried once and didn’t like for whatever reason but couldn’t quite seem to justify trashing it after only one use. I dare not even calculate how much money this pile of unused potential cost me.

And as I typed those words, the reason why I’m sharing all of this with you finally comes to me. I had a vision for every one of those tubes of lipstick when I purchased it. I had every intention of using every single one of them. Some of them I bought multiple tubes of the same shade because I liked it so much. I bought different shades for different seasons. But once the season past, the old colors just sat there and expired.

Too often we have unused potential that we allow to go to waste. Spiritual gifts that have never been opened. Piles of God-given vision that never saw the light of day. Old things just lingering, leaving no space for the new. Multiple resources that could be blessing others, just sitting there waiting to expire. New seasons full of new things that we never experienced or explored. So many great intentions that ultimately end up in the grave. We never even pause long enough to realize it costs us more not to try to fulfill a God-given vision than it does to actually go after it. It may cost us some time and money to not get everything exactly right the first time, but it may cost us our destiny if we never even try.

I encourage you to be brave enough to start pulling out some of those visions that God has given you throughout the years. Go through each of them one-by-one and let Him reveal to you which ones have expired and need to be thrown out, which ones are gifts that you could give to someone else, and which ones He wants you to apply in the current season. Because there’s nothing more powerful than a girl with a God-given vision and a good tube of red lipstick!

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