MASCARA AND MOTORCYCLES

“I just want to feel pretty! I’m going to walk the mall this afternoon, and I like people looking at me and thinking I am pretty.” The appointment had been made for a couple of days. I had been working as an esthetician for a while in a skincare salon. My eyes scanned the reception area, looking for my new client.

Brian was over 6 feet tall, with powerful, well-defined muscles. He stood up and walked gracefully towards me on huge feet encased in cream colored high-heeled pumps. He was dressed in a see-through top over a lacy bra, and white stretch stirrup leggings. The wig was truly the frosting on the cake. It was blond, long, and curly. I wasn’t quite sure what to do.

I took Brian back to my treatment room, not sure what the outcome would be. In a soft, very feminine voice and tone, he told me he was responding to a coupon add he had seen in the paper. He thought a facial meant I was going to put make-up on him. “I just want to feel pretty! I’m going to walk the mall this afternoon, and I like people looking at me and thinking I am pretty.”

I explained to him the service that he was actually scheduled to receive - a European facial, with cleansing, steam, massage – the whole experience. I don’t know if he decided he wanted to experience the facial, or was just being a gentleman and going through with the appointment he had scheduled. At any rate, we began our treatment together. It never occurred to me I could refuse to give him the service. There was a sign posted out front giving me that right.

Brian adamantly declined to remove his wig, which was not a very good one, and it hung way over onto his forehead and the sides of his face. So, I decided I’d have to make the best of it.

I moved into position, at the top end of the facial bed, both of us facing the same direction, as happens in any facial. I put cotton pads over his eyes and turned on my magnifying lamp to have a look at his skin. He had a lot of beard stubble, and I remember thinking that putting makeup on this face and making it look feminine could have been more of a challenge than the one I was currently facing. I removed the eye makeup he was wearing, and began cleansing his face.

I usually asked clients to remove their earrings. As I progressed through the cleansing, I reached the left side of his face. He was wearing earrings. Something made me keep my mouth shut (which by the way has never been my best talent). The left earring was clipped to a tiny flap of skin on the side of his head. The lower part of the earlobe was all that remained of his ear. There was a huge, jagged and recent scar running from the top of his head all along the side of his face, hidden behind the wig. I tried to camouflage the gasp that escaped my lips.

Meeting a new client for me meant trying to make them feel comfortable, to relax and enjoy their experience. That was usually accomplished by finding some kind of connection with the person. I had been desperately trying to find a connection with this person lying on my facial table. I quietly asked him what had happened to his face.

Whether the story I got was true or not, I will never be sure. He told me he was riding his Harley Davidson and had gone down on the bike in a serious accident, scraping the left side of his head and causing severe damage to the skin and loss of his ear. The story seemed even more tragic as he continued, talking about his wife who had been killed in that accident. His voice and aura began to change, and he became very quiet and withdrew from the conversation.

However, I had found the connection I was seeking – I also rode a Harley Davidson. So, as I continued to work on his skin, we began to talk. We discussed our bikes, their type and color and custom things we had done to them. We talked about Sturgis since we both had been there. We talked about riding in the rain. As the conversation continued, Brian’s voice and personality began to change. He moved from being whoever he was when he came through the door, to a masculine, macho man talking about bikes and his adventures as a biker.

An hour later the facial was completed. Brian’s feminine personality had morphed into a man. And now this man had to get up off the bed, leave my treatment room, go into the reception area and pay for his services, dressed in women’s clothing. Everything about him had changed, the way he stood, moved and walked was different than when we started. Now he was a very masculine biker in women’s clothing. Before he left my room he shook my hand firmly, and he thanked me for being so nice to him.

After he left, the full impact of what I had experienced began to have an effect on me. I began to tremble, and then to shake. I started crying uncontrollably. I couldn’t breathe. When you spend your days touching people physically, you learn about a certain kind of energy that is passed from others into your own body. It’s not something that is easily explained.

A few years later, after I gave my heart to Christ, I realized that during this time with Brian I had been feeling the full effects of the awful things Satan can do to a person’s life. I think he was just another person lost in Satan’s horrible plan. I had witnessed the sorrow and embarrassment Brian had to face leaving that day, and it made my heart ache for him and the life he had chosen. And still, he had thanked me for being so nice to him.

He knew there was something different about his life. I knew that my own personal ministry, the job I did every day that doesn’t make sense to most people, was something God intended in my life.

Here’s a couple of questions for all of us. Can you love someone whose behaviors you absolutely don’t understand? Can you accept and interact respectfully with someone who is so far off from what you consider normal? Can you see their pain and sorrow and feel empathy and concern for them? These are difficult questions to ask ourselves.

That’s what Jesus does. And He offers that love to every single person, even those we do not agree or identify with, whether or not we accept them. How we feel about others is most often not about the other, but about ourselves.

In Jeremiah 1:5, God says “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you….” And God’s word says in Psalm 139, “For You formed my inward parts; you covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret…your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written. The days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.”

Do you think Brian was some freak accident that slipped through the cracks of God’s perfect wisdom, an unwanted human being? Maybe you have felt that way about yourself at one time, or about another person who presented you with any type of significant challenge. You will never look into the eyes of anyone who God did not send Jesus to save. Let's get clear on that. They are God’s child, just as you are.

Wherever Brian roams on this earth, that fact will never change. If he is still roaming somewhere, riding his Harley or applying his mascara, I know those few minutes we spent together were in God’s plan. I can’t see what that was right now, beyond this story God has given me to write. But I believe that God would not have sent him to me if not for a purpose, and I don’t think it was just for my purpose. At least I pray that is not the case. I hope that something good came to Brian from God through me.

Willy Nelson sings a song with the lines in it “I may tell a lot of stories that may not be true, but I can get to heaven just as easy as you. Why don’t you mind your own business?”

To me that means salvation is for anyone who accepts it, and I’ve got my own struggles to surrender– not everyone else’s. I’ve got a multitude of sins to overcome. And yet we are called to love and share God’s love with everyone He puts in our path. Learning to love those we don’t understand or agree with – that, my friend, is the task at hand. God’s love is un-conditional. It is un-conventional. It is un-ending. But accepting it does require a choice from each of us. God asks us to help others make this choice. When you hear the words “The Gospel”, it simply means the good news – that God loves each of us.

God is love, no doubt about it.

If you are a person who is facing prejudice, hate, injustice, mocking, loneliness and fear, God is there, right beside you. Find your way to reach out to Him, He is not hiding or denying you access. Repeat this until you get it "The Maker of All Things Loves and Wants Me."

If you are in a population you might consider to be "normal" and acceptable, on the inside of right, maybe take a look at what you can do to help others. (Uh, by the way, there is no "normal". Someone somewhere considers you on the outside.)

Does that mean you should march into the local “Whatever Population You Have Determined is Wrong” headquarters and start “sharing”. Maybe so, but probably not.

If you want to share the true Gospel, God will send people to you who are searching and ready to listen. He will send someone your experience can speak to. Keep your eyes and heart open, ask Him to send someone. Start there. You’ll have more than enough to keep you busy. God will work on the heart to bring reconciliation and peace.