Hiding behind the mask

true idenity

Edward Welch 

I am reading this book with a friend and reading Chapter 2 really hit me hard. Chris and I read this about 6 months ago and it may have hit then, but today it hit me hard!!

Edward shares about a Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard who talks about hiding behind the mask. My mind started to wonder as I was reading and I remember a time during and after high school  I loved (ok really liked) clowns and theater faces. My first "home" and all the way through my first  years of marriage I had theater faces hanging in our home. I have earrings, ring, and a charm for my necklace of theater faces. I said I liked them because of the theater. I loved the theater!! That was the one thing during high school I could not get enough of. I could not wait to go to Drama every day. My senior year I not only took Drama, I was also an assistant for a Drama class. I spent my lunch time in the auditorium (for many reasons) because I felt so comfortable, so free, so me there! Yes, I was a drama geek!! We all are some kind of a geek- I was a Drama geek. My teacher Mr. Witt was awesome! He was a nut and as weird as they come. I guess that is why I liked him so!! He would let me "express" myself. So I had this desire to be on stage, not always in the spot light. I loved to work back stage. I loved being in charge of cleaning up the dressing rooms. I honestly loved everything about the theater. I honestly felt - Important!! 

So, reading today I started questioning why I had such a "liking" to the theater masks and the theater for that fact. Soren shares about the midnight hour where we throw our masks off. The "real" person can come out. We put our "mask" on every morning. E. T. Welch says "underneath the masks are people who are terrified that there will be an unveiling". This got my mind thinking about my life. When I think back to the years I really "loved" the theater and the masks, those truly were the days I was honestly so scared of anyone knowing who I "really" was and what kinds of things I have done. I carried around this heavy burden of trying to be all who everyone else liked. I tried to cover up who I was. I was great at hiding behind the mask. I would become whoever I was around. That's why I loved the theater, I could deny who I really was. 

I hear others talk about this kind of behavior - the hiding behind the mask. Most people would say "She has low self-esteem" or "She doesn't love herself". Well, thankfully E.T. Welch address this also.  low self-esteem usually means that I(we) think too highly of myself. It's the dark quieter side of pride. The side that most people disagree with. The side of pride that pulls the "who am I anyway" to draw attention or draw a response. It is pride hidden.  I lived in this fear of others for so long, I lived in a secret life of who I really was.  My mixed identity, you could say. Was it really a "mixed" identity? Or was it a wrong identity? A lost identity? 

Reading this book and seeing how this identity is not seeing ourselves in God's eyes.  As Adam and Eve became naked and ashamed after they ate the forbidden fruit, so we have been born into sin. We are born sinners, by sinners, and from sinners. God is perfect, we are not. Our only way to be perfect as He is, is to be washed by the blood of Jesus. It is when we know and understand this mentality that we can take our mask off and not feel ashamed in God's eyes. We say we can be honest and true with God but not with others. This is our first clue we value others more than God and do not understand what He has done for us.  Because if only His opinion of us truly mattered what would it matter what others thought? If we truly are a "hot mess" then we would want others to know what the Word has done. If I truly think of others before myself I would want them to be first, I would want to serve them with a love and compassion like no other!! 

I tell you, I have pride issues, I have a fear of man, and I don't put my trust in God and I know this is sin and must be repented of. I want people to like me, I want to be great in some one's eyes, and I want to right- all the time!! I want to be thought of as knowing all that I know in my "field". I want others to come ask me questions and take what I say as law. This is how I feel most days and then I break down and cry!! I repent and know that I don't have all the answers, honestly if I have any right answers it is only because Christ gave them to me.  I must see God's people as precious and as beautiful as they are.  I must see where others are sinning and not be upset, angry, or resentful but be moved to compassion. I must be humble enough to know when I am right and yet not argue and allow others to fail and make mistakes.  No matter how right I am, when I get mad because someone else thinks they are right- I am so wrong!! If love truly holds no account of right or wrong I must never think of myself as right.  

I know there are times when I must be strong in my knowledge, but I must do it with LOVE. My heart cannot stir up anger or condemnation towards another because this too is sin. I must let my "yes" be "yes" and my "no" be "no" and always speak with integrity and humility.  When we trust in God and not in human exsistance we do not think of ourselves,  we can trust others for the mere fact that our solid trust is in the Lord and when we have full trust in the Lord we ask "for what can mere man do to us?" We rest in the assurance of God's truth, promises, and love. The fact that He alone is our Salvation, Hope, and Help. When our names are written in the Book of Life they can NEVER be erased. It is then that we see our sin the way the Lord sees it and we are grieved and repent.   We have complete Trust in the Lord and our joy does not come from our circumstance or from others but it comes in the rested assuransurance of whose we are. And when we see that those who do not believe or do not have their trust in the Lord and resting in their own strength, it should break our hearts to share the promise, the hope, the peace, and the truth we have in Christ.

When my idenity is not hidden behind the mask I know I am strong in the Lord and allow others to see and know the real me!! I pray as I grow in the likeness of Christ I grow in my humility and love for others!! When my humility grows my pride shrinks.