Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.

It’s incredible how a woman can look when she rolls out of bed and slams on her clothes to travel versus when she spends time fixing her hair to wear it down, applying a little bit of makeup, and putting on a cute outfit. Some women are actually not recognizable because they look significantly different.

I recently saw a video of a girl who posted pictures of herself on Facebook without any makeup. People made awful comments: “You’re disgusting.” “How gross.” “No one should ever date you.” She took time and applied gorgeous makeup, and she started to get these sorts of comments: “You’re so beautiful.” “You’re perfect.” Then she started getting comments that said: “You’re wearing too much makeup.” “You’re nasty.”

This recently happened to me. My cousin was getting married, and I had the opportunity to meet her groomsmen and ushers—new people I hadn’t met before. I showed up with my jeans on, a T-shirt, and my hair in a crazy bun. I barely had any makeup on. Honestly, probably none. I met a bunch of different people, helped her pack for her trip, ate some junk food, and left.

The next day, I showed up at the wedding. I took the time to look presentable for her on her wedding day. By the way, when the bride is taking the time to get all dolled up for her wedding day, honor her by dressing up. So I washed my hair and blow-dried it. My cousin flat-ironed it. It looked really good. It looks so much better when someone else flat-irons your hair, so I do that sometimes. I put on a darling jumpsuit I got from Fabletics, which I love. It is so cute. It just shows my muscles so well. It’s so comfortable. It feels like you’re wearing your PJs. You’re dressed up with your pajama-feeling outfit on. It is the bomb dot-com!

I fixed my makeup, threw on a long, awesome statement sweater, flew into the wedding, and saw some of the gentlemen I had met the night before. I said to them by name, “Hi , how are you today?” Literally, two of them stopped in their tracks and followed me. One of them said, “Hey, what’s your name again?” I said, “I met you last night. My name is .” It was literally as if he had never seen me before. But I could tell there was a difference between the way I looked the day before and the way I looked that day because his response was jaw-dropping.

At my age, I don’t have that effect very often anymore at all. The majority of the time, I have my hair in a big, gigantic mess of a bun anyway, so no one even knows what I actually look like outside of my gym clothes, sweaty body, and crazy hair. But it was pretty incredible to see the difference a little bit of time spent can do and how differently people can react to you. I wondered if I should set my own example, spend the day and go around in my crazies and then go around dressed up to note how differently people treat me.

Let’s be people who look at the heart and not the body or the hair. Let’s not judge each other, thinking we are lazy, inconsiderate, or rude just because we are not all fixed up. Have you ever had this happen to you before? Did people treat you differently? I would love to hear your story.

Sheri