True Faced

I'm feeling convicted to share in a different way on this blog. I haven't exactly decided what direction I want to go with this. I thought I was going to go with a funny slant, but I have a lot more on my heart than that so I think will just take it one day at a time. I have a feeling when you read this that you will never know what you're going to get. But maybe that will keep things interesting.

So, I am reading this book called True Faced - (Trust God and others with who you really are) by Bill Thrall, Bruce McNicol, and John Lynch. It was recommended to me by my husband and it really made an impact on him. I am not very far into it yet, but I have to say it is a really interesting and convicting book. I want to share an excerpt with you. It is about the "masks" we wear. I think we can all relate and if you can't maybe you're not being honest? I know I find myself wondering from time to time how much of the life I'm living is really me, the me God intended, and how much is me, the me I'm pretending to be. The excerpt is titled...

The High Cost of a Two-Faced Life

"It is very expensive to wear a mask. For one thing, no one-not even those I love-ever gets to see my face. There are moments when some hint of the real me bleeds through, but mostly I just confuse them. Worse yet, I never experience the love of others because when I wear a mask, only my mask receives love! I sense I'm still not loved and self-diagnose that maybe my mask wasn't good or tight enough. So, I delve even more desperately into mask-wearing, convinced maybe the next one will present what you want and prove I'm worth to receive your love. And if that's not painful enough, get this. I also cannot give love from behind a mask, at least not love from the real me. The ones I long to love experience the cloying attempts of someone who doesn't exist.

Many of us just stopped on those last few sentences and sighed at the realization of wasted love and unecessary loneliness. But even all of that is not all of that. Mask-wearing thwarts our maturing, the very path into the dreams God intended for us. God designed release of influence this way on purpose, because immature people have an incredibly negative impact on those they influence. When we don a mask, we convince others that:"

-They too must live a two-faced life.
-They too must present an idealized person.
-They too must hide what is true about them.
-New life in Christ doesn't really work.
-They will remain stuck in their unresolved life issues.
-It is better to be unknown than to risk rejection.
-Self-protection is their only hope.

When we wear mask, we teach others:

-To live in guarded fear
-To live a life of comparison, envy, and jealousy
-To trade vulnerability for the veneer of safety.

So, we're not just actors. We are also directors in a badly styled play, teaching those we love how to pose and masquerade, memorize fake lines, rehearse expressions, and produce false tears on command.

Sadly, cruelly, our maskes deceive us into believing that we can hide our true selves. Not so. In time, others can usually see what we're trying to hide. No matter how beautifully formed, our masks eventually present us as tragic figures...because masks always crack or distort or buckle or unravel or wear through or lose their shape."