the musings of this nigerian gal

It was Friday evening, when my friend, who is a make-up artist, called me to ask if I wouldn’t mind having my face made up. And I was like, “are you kidding me? Of course, I’m interested!” P.S: those weren’t the words I said. I said “sure”, you know, sounding cool and all that.

Anyhoo, I arrived at her place Saturday morning. She started making my face up once it was 12pm.

And I have to tell you, it was a beautiful experience. (Get it? 😂)

Now, if you have ever had your face made up or been where someone was getting her face made up, you’d acknowledge that it has to first get messy before the beautiful emerges.

And I couldn’t help drawing up a comparison between what my friend — Zoe Beauty Care — was doing on my face with what God does with our lives.

At the point of that picture 👆🏼, I was already getting an idea of what was to come. This is like when God gives you an idea of what He has planned for you. Some events start happening in your life that bears testament to that promise. You can see it. Everything is looking like it is shaping up and heading towards what God says. And then comes the mess.

The unplanned, unexpected mess. I have to tell you; that yellow thing at the sides of my nose and on my chin, was totally unexpected 😂. I definitely didn’t see that coming. When I saw my face, I remembered one photography production I was involved in, specifically to the point when the “bride” was being made up. I remember seeing the different colours on her face and wondering what the make-up artist was doing. I wondered what my friend was doing because this was not looking like the finished product I see on people’s faces. But then, I reminded myself that my friend was a trained make-up artist, I am not. She knows what she’s doing, even if I don’t.

How many times have your life taken an unexpected turn and you wake up in the morning and step outside, take a deep breath and get real high and then scream at the top of your lungs, “what’s going on?” Sometimes you fall on your knees and cry the tears of surrender, telling Him that He is God and you’re not and He knows what He is doing, even if you don’t. Other times you try in futility to steer your life back on what you call its tracks. But that only leads to disaster.

Imagine me snatching the brush from my friend’s hand to fix what I thought was a mess. D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R.

Two hours, few minutes later and it looked like everything was back on track. I was ready to go. I mean, get me the camera, it looked good enough to me. If I had mentioned this to my friend, she probably would have fainted. We don’t see the big picture. Things come into our lives and we want to settle because that’s how far our horizon can go. But God is telling us; nah-ah, sit tight, we haven’t arrived at the destination yet. When God gives us that answer, we tend to grumble. “God, I’ve been sitting for more than two hours. For twenty years. How can you tell me this isn’t it?”

On Saturday night, the Holy Spirit was still telling me how I needed to learn patience in my relationship with Him.

Thirty minutes later and I was like, “oh, now I see. This is way better than the former (obviously).” But even still I was still thinking, “nothing could be better than this.” But there was something better than this, because she fixed my lips. Fixed my hair. Fixed my ears. And I was soon looking like a money bag.

Some times when God takes us on an adventure, we don’t see the why. We are fine the way we are, we think, there’s no need to bring in the unfamiliar. And when God does bring in the unfamiliar, we gripe like those ungrateful wrenches in the wilderness, who believed that slavery was better than the wilderness.

God is the author of our lives. He knows what He is doing. All those unexpected twists and plots are to make a sizzling climax and a breathtaking resolution.

God is the make-up artist of our lives. He knows what He is doing. All those unexpected colours that he throws on your face is His beautiful mess that He will mix to create a masterpiece.

You may not see it but He does. So trust Him. Be patient. Hold on to His hand, never letting go even when it doesn’t make sense. Especially when it doesn’t make sense.

As the benevolent person that I am, I decided to drop another goodness for you to enjoy.👇🏼