God wears lipstick

                    

   

Last year I was going through a bit of a rough time emotionally and spiritually. I felt disconnected from God and embarrassed that I have lost myself in earthly matters. And more so that I have turned away from Him, knowing that He was the only one able to help me. I reach a point where God literally ripped all the things that kept me away from Him, out of my hands that I could finally hit rock bottom and realize that He was my rock. With desperation I walked into a Christian book store, dying to hear God's words, that I stumbled upon a book called, "SexGod". Yes. I know. That's quite a daring title for a book, and to be honest I felt a bit weird and uncomfortable even holding it. I knew the author very well, Rob Bell, and loved all his previous work. So I decided to give it a go.

                                                      

         

To this day, it has been one of the most mind-blowing-saywhat?-wow-I-never-thought-of-that books I have ever read. And I would love to share one of the images described in this book. 

The book focusses on a human's sexuality. The word encompassing several aspects, one of which is our humanity. Our humanity..our sexuality..is what differs us from animals and angels. It's what defines us. Neither angel nor animal. God has placed something unique in all human beings: we reflect what God is like and who God is. 

Everybody is the bearers of the divine image. 

Its when people objectify others that we strip them of their humanity. Instead of reflecting God, they reflect a nothingness. And its in this nothingness that people lose hope. In the book, Rob Bell tells a story of the war, where a soldier gives his account of a concentration camp.  A concentration camp's purpose was to strip away any humanity from the people. Leaving them naked, bare, objects, worthless, hopeless. The soldier recounts something that happened one specific day. 

"It was shortly after the British Red Cross arrived that a very large quantity of lipstick arrived. This was not at all what we wanted, we were screaming for hundreds of other things and I don't know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it. It was an action of genius, sheer brilliance. I believe nothing did more for these internees that the lipstick. Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nighty but with Scarlet red lips. You would see them wandering with nothing but a blanket, but with scarlet red lips. I saw a women dead on a table and clutched in her hand was a piece of lipstick. At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, not merely a tattooed number on their arm. At last they could take interest in their appearance. That lipstick started to give them back their humanity. " 

Our humanity reflects God within us. Without it we lose sight of who we are within God. 

Sometimes all you need is a little bit of lipstick.