The Church of Almighty God | My appearance improved, but why am I joyless?

My appearance improved, but why am I joyless? 

I believe that quite a few women have the same feeling with me: When facing our wardrobes full of the latest fashions, we always think we still lack a jacket in fashion. When facing our shoe cabinets full of high heels, we always think we still need a pair of Cinderella’s crystal shoes. We always can’t forbear buying the most popular hand bags for ourselves when shopping.

In the age of valuing appearance highly, unconsciously I started to pay much attention to my conscious good. I always wore name brands of fashionable dresses, and makeup in the same style of stars, and also made a hairstyle after the fashion of Korean stars. Whenever seeing a mirror door on the street, I always rushed at it and had a look in it to fix my face. Even when on the bus, I never forgot to take out a little mirror and see whether my mascara was smudged, and whether my hair was a mess. Every day besides working, eating and sleeping, I spent plenty of time in studying the secrets of various makeups, hair designs and dress match. In order to attract attentions and turn more heads so as to satisfy my vanity, I frequently changed my hairstyle, having my hair permed and dyed, such as having rinka haircut, getting a shaggy perm, sleek perm and so on; cloring my hair blonde, burgundy, or brown and so on. Thus, several years passed by. My hair fell out seriously when I combed it. I always made up my mind: I will never do my hair any more. But whenever seeing online the latest hair color, the pinkish-purple color, I couldn’t help going to the barbershop and comforted myself against my will: “This is my last time to dye my hair. I will never do it any more….”

On Singles Day, upon seeing the Korean coat which I had longed for was on sale, I immediately snapped it up without hesitation. But I did not have the matching trousers. Then I took a month’s salary to buy the trousers in the same style, matching hat, bag, scarf, hair ornaments and lipstick in tone-on-tone colors. In order to look better with this suit on me, I started to lose weight by having nothing but cucumbers every day so that I was almost faint with hunger. Until I was thin as a lath, I eventually walked on the street with the suit on as I wished. However my purse and stomach were empty. My heart was filled with gigantic emptiness and disappointment instead of delight.

When I came home, I was extremely tired. While I took off the suit and intended to squeeze them into the wardrobe, I just found that my wardrobe had already been filled with all kinds of clothes, hand bags and shoes. Looking at my gray face in the mirror caused by malnutrition because of excessive dieting, I smiled sadly: I tortured and tormented myself like this. Do I really look good? I was confused and could only eat the meat-filled buns made by Mom to fill the emptiness in my heart. Giving up losing weight for a period of time, my weight gradually recovered to normality. Then the “luxury goods” which dissipated all my salary completely became a veritable exhibit in my wardrobe. Thus, I was tricked by so-called “fashion” again.

Just when I was so depraved as to lose my direction, a friend of my mother spread God’s kingdom gospel to us and said that God’s word could solve all the troubles. I opened God’s word carrying my confusion and read carefully. God says: “One after another, all these trends carry an evil influence that continually degenerates man, that lowers their morals and their quality of character more and more, to the extent that we can even say the majority of people now have no integrity, no humanity, neither do they have any conscience, much less any reason. So what are these trends? You cannot see these trends with the naked eye. When the wind of a trend blows through, perhaps only a small number of people will become the trendsetters. They start off doing this kind of thing, accepting this kind of idea or this kind of perspective. The majority of people, however, in the midst of their unawareness, will still be continually infected, assimilated and attracted by this kind of trend, until they all unknowingly and involuntarily accept it, and are all submerged in and controlled by it. For man who is not of sound body and mind, who never knows what is truth, who cannot tell the difference between positive and negative things, these kinds of trends one after another make them all willingly accept these trends, the life view, the life philosophies and values that come from Satan. They accept what Satan tells them on how to approach life and the way to live that Satan ‘bestows’ on them. They have not the strength, neither do they have the ability, much less the awareness to resist.”

Sister’s fellowship about the word of God made me have a knowledge of the fact that Satan tempts man into committing a sin by the evil tide. It turns out that the more and more popular “contending in beauty” is exactly the evil trend raised by Satan among human beings. It makes people exert one final effort to pursue the superficial appearance. In order to change the appearance to be seen highly and envied by others, people do not hesitate to ravage their health. Driven by the evil view of “Only by owning beautiful appearance can we be happy,” so as to be seen highly by others, I also didn’t hesitate to spend all the savings and recklessly ravaged my own body and features. As a result, my appearance was corroded by the cosmetics made from chemicals. For the purpose of wearing the clothes which did not fit me, I ruined my original good health. What was worse, my innermost being was corrupted by the evil trend. Nowadays, I just knew how deeply I had been harmed by Satan. If God’s salvation had not come upon me, I would have been still struggling in sin.

Today, I don’t spend plenty of time in makeup and hairdressing any more. Instead, I take my precious time to read God’s word, to equip myself with the truth, and to gather with my brothers and sisters to share our experiences and sing praises to God. Living like this, I feel contented and happy every day. Whenever the greedy desires show up in my heart, I will pray to God, and God will enlighten me. By reading God’s word, I can discern my wrong intentions, practice betraying myself and abandon my previous vain lifestyle. As I understand more and more truth, my heart gradually gets far away from the city of desire controlled by Satan. Although I still move through the dazzling world of myriad temptations, the latter-day Sodom, my heart will never be captured by it. I think my life now is truly happy, out of desire, out of danger.

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