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The bondage of Makeup
I thought about it, but then I just brushed if off my shoulder. I just wasn’t ready to give it up. But what I didn’t realize is what I would be faced with in my life ahead as a result of that. Years later after I gave into the pressure to reflect “The Image” of the world’s mindset of beauty, I would ask myself “Can I ever measure up to this? Can I ever be good enough?” I knew it was a game that I could never win. Yet I would put on a face every day so that I could feel good about the way that I looked, and not be embarrassed. It got to the point where I could not leave my house without makeup. I was insecure and miserable! It was a prison for me, and I did not know how to overcome it. I lived in it, I slept in it. I felt ugly without it.
The bondage of Fear
Ever since I was a little girl, I always struggled with fear and anxiety. I was afraid to be alone, and yet I was afraid of people. Since youth I had seen my mother go through one abusive relationship after another. I would also become the abused victim in ways I cannot mention. I was terrified and shut myself off from people. I did not let anyone get close to me. I also lived in fear and anxiety every day of my life. My mother would try and tell me “It’s just a chemical imbalance”, but I thought to myself, “How could I possibly bring myself to such fear and torment?”
My Previous Religious Experience Before I Came To the Truth
Beforehand, I had accepted the Lord many times, but I still was not delivered from fear, insecurity, or depression and I did not understand why. Also, my brothers Scott and Shane would go with me to church, and they accepted the Lord, but they still went their own way. The church that I was going to in my early teen years taught me, “Once saved, always saved. You can go out and deny God for the rest of your life, but if you accepted Jesus, you’re saved.” I found out later that this teaching contradicted this scripture:
The Bible says: “Therefore whoever confesses me before men, him I will also confess before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I will also deny before my father who is in heaven.” --Matt 10: 32-33
The reason why my brothers and I were so deceived was because we did not study our Bibles. When I came to Roswell, NM, and moved to this trade school, I went to another church that taught me, “You’ve got to repent of your sin. You can lose your salvation if you walk away from God.” At this point I was very confused. One church taught me, “Once saved always saved,” and another taught me, “You can lose your salvation.” Who is telling me the truth? Because somebody is lying to me. Either one is right, and one is wrong, or both are wrong, but it is completely impossible for both to be right.
· 1 Corinthians 11:18-19 “For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it. For there must also be heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.”
I came to the conclusion that I can’t believe just anything that anyone teaches me in a church, and that I must look well to my going.
