Never did I think I would write a post about my recent acne/skincare journey, but leave it to the Lord to use it to teach me something, so here goes- Introducing: my adventure with adult acne and what it reminded me about life itself…

A couple months ago, my skin basically lost its mind and broke out pretty badly. I never had the clearest skin ever, but I felt confident and happy enough with it. I have always enjoyed both going bare-faced and wearing makeup, and I usually felt confident enough to do either whenever I felt like it. I always have, however, had hormonal acne that always would flare up every month (in hindsight, it was never *that* bad, but it was worse than its regular state and would feel bad at the time).

Around early/mid-February, my skin flared up, and I assumed it would calm back down again as usual. Instead, my skin continued to break out and got worse and worse… by the end of March, it was the worst it had ever been.

I tried various remedies at home, product after product being cycled through, and nothing seemed to help. At one point, I feared that I, myself, was exacerbating the problem.

I know acne is not really a big deal in the big scheme of things, but it really did have a significant impact on how I saw myself and felt in my own skin, as well as my desire to get out and engage with others. I felt super insecure, trying to cover it with makeup as best as I could, and I also felt very uncomfortable because my face quite literally hurt and was in pain from it all. I’m in my early 20s, so you can imagine my frustration at the emergence of this new acne, as I thought surely all of that was behind me in my teens…

After weeks of frustration trying to remedy it myself, I went to an esthetician who essentially told me it was breaking out because of my diet (without asking me anything about it) and that “if I cut out dairy and gluten it would help it clear up.” I suppose that is fine advice in general, but what she didn’t know is that a) I already do try to find little ways to cut back on both in general and b) I had not made any significant changes to my lifestyle or diet that would have caused this insane breakout out of the blue. I wasn’t eating anything new, I wasn’t taking any new medication, I had been working out MORE, not less, and my skin had never been reactive to my stress (or else senior year of college would have been ROUGH for my poor skin), so it seemed that there was no logical explanation for why my face was now covered with painful breakouts.

Regardless of the fact that I knew all of these things to be true, though, I still left feeling like it was in fact all my fault. Besides, I’m no skincare expert, so I thought maybe it really was because of something I unknowingly did wrong.

Trusting in her professional opinion, I let the esthetician do a particular treatment to my skin. Ultimately, said treatment did not do anything to improve it, so I then decided it was time to seek out a different kind of professional to help me and went to a dermatologist.

Right off the bat, it was a different experience. There was no judgement on me for the situation, but instead, he calmly assured me to “not worry, because we will figure it out and get it cleared up.” He took time to really understand me and my medical history to see why it could be breaking out. Talk about a very different tone! One experience had me feeling guilty and accepting blame for something that was not truly my fault, and another had me hopeful that we could work together and find a solution. One approach was judgement and condemnation, and one was hope. That dermatologist was truly my lifesaver during the peak of this *skin crisis.*

Our first course of action did not work, so I scheduled a follow up with him. Again, he took the time to actually sit and hear me out, prompting for more information and assuring me that we would figure out this frustrating situation. He then casually asked if I had ever tried birth control for acne in the past, to which I shared that I had taken it years ago for a short time after having a couple ruptured ovarian cysts, but I had never taken it for acne (and did not want to).

That one comment prompted a whole other thought process and discussion from him. He listed various signs and symptoms that I had been experiencing recently, ones that I had totally just written off, and he suggested getting bloodwork done to check for certain factors- something I would not have even considered.

I went to my doctor and got the bloodwork done, telling her what the dermatologist said, and then I waited for the results. The whole time I waited, I prepped myself for them to come back and say everything looked normal and nothing was off. After all, when you go to the doctor, you usually don’t want them to tell you something is wrong with you, right? But this time, I knew that I would feel worse, not better, if that in fact was true.

It wasn’t that I hoped something would be wrong; All I wanted was to know that there was in fact a REASON for what I was experiencing. I could cross that bridge of “what’s next” later, but in that moment I just needed to know that there was a reason for my situation.

What I didn’t want to hear was that my change of circumstances had come about with no good reason, and that it was all for random.

When the nurse called me and told me that there were in fact levels that were abnormal, the same ones my dermatologist told me to check, I breathed a sign of RELIEF, because I finally had answers as to why this all had been happening. And I even had a course forward to correct some things that were off in my blood. It wasn’t anything crazy, serious, or majorly significant…

But there it was. There was a reason behind my circumstances. It felt like there was a purpose to the pain- because it led me to a revelation of something deeper going on in my body instead of just having a weird breakout.

And guess what else? It wasn’t my fault at all!

Isn’t that what we all want? I’m not talking about acne anymore, but just in life. Whenever we walk through challenging, painful, or uncertain circumstances, do we not desperately hope that there is some kind of bigger reason or purpose for them all? I know I do!

We want to know that it was not random, that it was not all for nothing.

Sometimes, we do get to see that immediate, tangible reason (in this case, my bloodwork), and we are given a clear path to get through address it (medications), but sometimes it is not as clear. But just because we don’t see the reason, it does not mean that there was not one. Sometimes it’s just not as easy to see.

So why don’t we see it sometimes? So many reasons, at least in my experience. Maybe we’re looking in the wrong place; Maybe we aren’t looking from the right perspective; Maybe we are so focused on what we think the reason should be that we totally miss it when we see it; Or maybe, it is just something that we aren’t meant to understand or know on this side of Heaven.

In the case of my skin and recent health, I so easily could have missed the reason. I could have kept on trying to treat it myself, in my own strength and with my very limited knowledge, never getting to the root cause and learning that something was off. I could have stopped at that esthetician, accepting blame that wasn’t mine to take on, and again, never even knowing the unseen forces at play. I could have placed my hope in the wrong places: my own abilities and the wrong authority, and I would have totally missed the answer I was desperate for.

Had I not seen that specific dermatologist and been guided to ask my doctor for the specific tests, I would have never thought to pursue it, nor would I have been emboldened to do so, in all honesty. In all reality, he might not have even thought to suggest it to ME had I not offhandedly mentioned a very small, specific piece of my medical history. All the pieces had to come together for me to learn the reason: pursuing the right counsel and authority, the right perspective, the right direction, and the right next steps. Everything fell into place and guided me to a reason, and in this case, a solution.

It is so comforting to learn the reason for things, but there is also an alternate, frustrating reality in many cases: try as we might, and as much as we wish for it, we may never receive the specific answers/reasons for the things that we endure in this life. But again, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t one. I could have gotten a clean bill of health with my blood, but that wouldn’t have negated the fact that something caused it. There was a reason for the breakouts, even if I hadn’t received an answer as to what it was. Similarly, there is a “why” and a purpose to all the pain we endure in this life, and that is more important than us trying to comprehend every single reason behind everything we experience.

What is important is how everything, no matter how awful or grand, can serve a purpose in God’s glorious plan for your life. Nothing is for not so long as He is in the picture. Whether we get our tangible answer or not, there is always the same simple purpose behind our struggles in this life.

Ultimately, in all situations, the ever-present answer of “why” is simply this: that we endure it and turn it for His glory.

Even when it feels so, nothing is simply a random, pointless experience, because everything can and should be used to point to His glory. Even when things don’t feel “good,” we can rest in the simple fact and assurance that He is good and is turning all things for His good. He does not cast pain and hardship onto His children, but He does take all of that pain (that oftentimes is purely a result of our own free will and sinful nature), and He gives it a purpose.

Our flesh is programmed to favor what is tangible. We seek comfort in our answers, our reasons, our validations that what we are experiencing has a justification behind it. But whether we find that explanation or not, that comfort is fleeting. The things of this world will fade, along with every last one of our justifications and explanations, but at the end of the day, at the end of our life, there He will still be- steadfast, constant, and all powerful.

We were not created to solve our problems in our own strength. We were not created to seek our ultimate validation and self-worth from false, earthly authority. We were not created to shoulder a burden of guilt and self-loathing upon our shoulders. We were not created to have every answer. We were intended to seek first His kingdom, to pursue Him with all our mind, soul, and strength. We are instructed to lay down our struggles at His feet, knowing that He will give us the strength to endure, even if He never gives us a single answer as to why. We were created to do all things for the glory of our God and trust Him to bring beauty from our ashes, purpose from our pain.

Because of the sacrifice of Jesus, though we so desperately strive and hope to have closure, to know the “why” behind our deepest sufferings, we can still have complete hope and peace if those answers never come. Even if our questions remain unanswered on this side of Heaven, we can know with complete conviction that there can be a purpose to our pain. That purpose is more important than any earthly explanation, and that is simply to praise and glorify the very One who created our desperate, questioning spirits.

So in those moments of desperation and hopelessness, we trust that no matter the valleys we walk through, we are never aimlessly wandering in pointless isolation. We are held, guided, loved, and seen in our darkness, and every breath we breathe has beautiful purpose, no matter how labored it may feel. A new breath is coming, because with Him, there is hope with every.last.step.