Masks

Halloween is just around the corner. The girls went shopping for their costumes this week. As usual there was lots of talk about what or who they would be and that changed at least once a week since last Halloween! All of this talk about costumes got me to thinking about the masks so many of us wear everyday. Does anyone really know who we are behind those masks? The happy housewife or the desperate housewife? The happily married or just barely holding it together, sleeping in different rooms? The perfect little family or the one with kids breaking curfews, parents avoiding their kids, and no one talking to each other...I mean really talking to each other.
Sounds like we all need to get real with each other! Ya it's hard, no doubt but we have to be genuine, that is part of being in relationship with other people. God knows who you are behind that mask, what is real and what you are acting at. He has put people around that can and will support you and help you move to a place of genuineness. We can only form truly deep relationships when we show people our scars, (or gaping open wounds), admit our weaknesses and frailties and show them who we really are. Otherwise they are forming a relationship with someone who is not you at all! The church, the body of Christ, is a great place to do this and yet I have heard all too often lately that it is the last place people will. This breaks my heart. We are all broken and in need of a Savior. The church is meant to be a hospital for the sick, we are all that. If you are perfect, if you have it all figured out, then give up your seat on Sunday for someone else, help the rest of us, but don't run and hide and pretend to be someone you are not. Masks start to sweat and stink and are suffocating after awhile.

1 Thessalonians 2:4-6 (New International Version)

4On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts. 5You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed—God is our witness. 6We were not looking for praise from men, not from you or anyone else.