It's about learning to love what God gave you.

I remember the days that I wouldn't want to even leave my room to go to the bathroom without putting makeup on first. I thought that if anyone would see me bare-faced, that they might see all the issues I used to see in myself. Every pimple, blackhead, scar, and especially the bags under my eyes. I was already being ridiculed for my hair, my weight and the way I spoke; when a girl is already being bullied at school and already has low self-esteem it's hard to not want to hide it.

It started for me just about the same time it happens for every girl... Middle School. While every other girl seemed to only be worrying about if their hair still looked good after gym class and if their lip gloss was still glossy, I was worrying about if my foundation was still covering every little detail. I would care way more about just covering up everything than making it look like I wasn't actually wearing makeup. But of course the time did come that I realized I had to learn how to really wear make-up and try to stop worrying about if someone saw an imperfection.

High School. Those words used to me used to mean, a new life for fun, friends and heartbreak. In reality it turned into even more hiding, high school was the time in my life where everything started to go further and further down the drain. I'll spare you the details for now, but lets just say I had more things to cover up than just pimples. But along with having more to cover up, I also was put more to the test to see if I liked myself and the answer came swiftly and painfully... I found I truly did hate every single thing about me.

Some think that I would say that just for attention, but it was actually the truth. My life at the time seemed so terrible that every time I looked in the mirror, whether I had makeup on or not, all I saw was the girl that nobody liked, nobody wanted to be around and nobody wanted to even be around.

But there came a day where I said to myself, "Every day there is going to be someone who comes along and doesn't like you, but I will choose to like myself more and more each day." and just from that one sentence came my new outlook. Every day I try to look at myself differently, and I'm thankfully I have people helping me with this challenge every day. My friends always encourage me and help motivate me, and my fiance helps me to see that I am beautiful.

While I know I am not the typical beauty that everyone seeks to be, I'm okay with that and no one can change that anymore. I still struggle with people telling me what not to wear, how I should do my makeup, that I should always wear make-up and how I should do my hair. But I just tell those people that if they don't like how I look, then they should just try to look at something else.

Nowadays, the only time I wear makeup is for special events, if I feel dressy and on those few days where I actually feel pretty and I just want to enhance it.

So I say to everyone out there, you don't have to wear make-up to look/feel pretty everyday. You should feel pretty everyday and only wear makeup if you want to enhance your natural beauty. Those people out there who say that you have to look like you drew all over your face with crayola crayons just to look beautiful can go suck it in my opinion.

Everyone is beautiful in their own way, and we all need to start appreciating and loving the looks and life that God has given us.