God & Me—The divine makeup.

I didn’t always understand what people meant when they said God lives within.

For most of my life, I searched for God the way I searched for love — outside of myself. I looked for signs in relationships. I looked for answers in other people’s approval. I looked for reassurance in being chosen, being wanted, being needed.

And every time something ended — a relationship, a season, a version of myself — I felt like I had failed some divine test.

Then grief entered my life in a way that stripped everything down to bone.

Loss has a way of silencing distractions. When you experience death up close, when you sit with heartbreak that doesn’t have a quick explanation, when you cry until your body feels empty, something ancient begins to surface. Not dramatic. Not loud. Just ancient.

I began to realize that what I thought was punishment was actually preparation.

In my culture, women prepare themselves before stepping out into the world. There is ritual in getting ready. Mothers teach daughters how to line their eyes, how to care for their skin, how to present themselves with dignity. There is intention in every detail.

And one day it came to me — God had been doing the same thing with me.

But not with cosmetics.

With experience.

Every heartbreak shaped my perception.
Every betrayal sharpened my discernment.
Every loss softened my pride.
Every tear washed something false away.

It was as if my spirit had been sitting in front of a mirror my entire life, and God was patiently applying layers — not to hide me, but to reveal me.

The divine makeup was not about beauty. It was about identity.

Grief lined my eyes with depth.
Responsibility strengthened my posture.
Loneliness taught me how to sit with myself without running.
Silence taught me how to listen.

And somewhere in the middle of surviving it all, I noticed something change in my reflection.

My eyes were different.

They weren’t searching anymore.

There was love there — but not the kind that begs. Not the kind that performs. Not the kind that fears abandonment.

It was steady.

I began to feel my grandmothers in that steadiness. The women before me who endured things they never spoke about. The women who carried families through loss, migration, silence, sacrifice. I realized I was not just healing for myself — I was healing through them.

The divine makeup was ancestral.

It was resilience passed down in blood.
It was faith whispered through generations.
It was the quiet understanding that a woman can break and still remain sacred.

For years, I believed I was looking for a man to confirm my worth. But what I was really looking for was recognition of the divine design already placed inside me.

God was never withholding love from me.
God was building my capacity to see it.

Now when I look in the mirror, I don’t see someone who has been unlucky in love or marked by grief. I see craftsmanship. I see refinement. I see a woman who has been shaped intentionally.

The search for inner truth didn’t lead me to a new belief system. It led me back to myself.

God and I were never separate.

The love I was seeking in someone else was always waiting in my own eyes.

And that is the divine makeup.