Recently, I re-read some old journal entries and a narrative-like document I wrote about the summer of 2010 (or, really, the last year – May 2010 through August 2011). Often, I say I am a completely different girl than I was in May 2010 (or before), but that is not entirely true. I am different, for sure, but how different am I really?
God has taught me a lot in the last year and some months, and He has molded my heart. I learned how to feel – good feelings, “bad” feelings, sad feelings, happy feelings, mellow feelings, energetic feelings, and any other kind of feelings. One could say that the summer before last was a lesson in “feeling”. It was, also, a lesson in truth – being honest with God, and trusting Him with who I really am; and beyond that, learning something about vulnerability, and honesty, and “being real”.
I used to say I hadn’t been told to “be truthful and real and honest about who you really are” until I came to college, more specifically to my current church home. But, that’s not true either. I very distinctly remember the only high school church retreat I went on being about this exact topic. I don’t remember what the exact “title” of the weekend was, but it was something simple, like “Be Real”. There were anonymous signs around the conference room posted with various sins people in the room had committed; also, there were signs with lies people believed (“I am ugly”, “I hate myself”, etc.).
My mind was numbed to these things, though. I believed I was okay how I was. I believed that no one needed to know in what ways I had struggled and was struggling. I believed I could not trust people. I believed that I would only be hurt if I “opened up”. I believed I needed to pack away my lies and stuff them down deep – as far as they would go. It almost worked. I nearly convinced myself I was “perfect”.
In college, I forgot about this retreat and this idea of “being real”. I have been wearing “masks” since I was very young, and it seemed that in high school and in college everyone else wore a mask, too. The mask I’d been wearing my whole life was beginning to crack at home, but it would be fresh for those in college. They would not see the rocky foundation upon which it lay – covering up my many insecurities.
I hid behind a mask of “perfection”. Only I knew what really lay behind the pretty face façade – a girl struggling, wanting something deeper, something “more”, something greater. A girl: confused, alone, and afraid.
In the fall of 2009, God got my attention. “You are NOT alone”, He shouted, clearly. I realized that I was not the only one struggling for REAL. Perhaps, in high school, I thought it (the posters with lies and sins) was all made up – a scenario, an idea – certainly not reality. “No one has really struggled like that – we’re in high school” (completely ignoring the fact that *I* had…).
In the last 2 years, God has cracked my many masks. He has helped me take them off and He has gently cleaned my face so that I may live for Him as He made me to – not as the girl I think I “should” be.
I don’t think I am actually all that different (now as opposed to a year or two ago) – I’m just living as who I really am, and who God made me to be – rather than some girl I was convinced everyone would like. (Or, also, rather than walking in fear – most days…)
However…masks are still very tempting to hide behind. And, occasionally (more often than I’d like to admit), I put the mask of “perfection” on instead of relying on God.
What are you hiding behind? Are there any masks you need to take off?
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