Do You Masquerade Year Round?

When people look at you, do they "see" the "real" or "authentic" you? Lately, I have been wondering a lot about what people think when they see me walking down the street or at my job. I am not being vain when I think about this, but it does worry me. I profess myself to be a Christian, but is that the first thing that people see about me, when they meet me for the first time. Or do they see the "mask" of myself that I want them to see?

Yesterday, I started reading a new book entitled "Beyond The Masquerade - Unveiling the Authentic You" by Dr. Julianna Slatery. I have only gotten through the first chapter and already I have learned some invaluable information.

• Our Masks Prevents Us from Experiencing Intimacy with God - Our relationship with God is absolutely dependent upon how we understand ourselves before Him. We must never approach God based on our strengths. Our talents, good behavior, knowledge of Scripture, and devotion to God cannot make us worthy in God's eyes. We're strong only when we're willing to be weak. (page 15)
• Our Masks Prevents Us from Pleasing God - We need to not be so concerned with how the world sees us. In fact, what others think and feel should not matter at all. We can do everything that a good "Christian Woman" is "supposed to do" and yet it still may not be enough to please God. The problem lies in why we do the things we do... are we doing them so that we will be noticed by the world and so that we live up to what the world expects of us, or are we doing the things that we do because we want to serve our Lord?

Every though we have, every word we utter, every

motive in our hearts is either intent upon pleasing God

or serving our pride.

• Our Masks Prevents Us from Experiencing Intimacy in Relationships - When we sit down with a fellow Christian and start talking, do we cloak ourselves in the facade of "Christian Love" and rather than building each other up, we spend the time tearing each other down and trying to outdo each other?

When I was done ready the first chapter, I said the little prayer at the end and asked God to let me see what masks I am currently putting up for people to see. If you are wondering the same thing, maybe you may want to say the prayer as well and then let me know what God says to you (don't feel obligated to tell me - but it may be nice to know that we are not the only ones who have the same masks that we are trying to rid ourselves of).

O Precious Lord, I want the freedom that You died to give all of us!

With my heart full of love for You, I want to be free to praise You as Your bride.

I want to honor You without a thought going through my head that I need to impress others.

I want to fellowship with and serve others without wanting to compete against others, being jealous of others or being suspicious of other peoples' motives.

I want to be able to proclaim Your Name without the lingering thoughts that others will not approve going through my head.

I want to tell the world that because of Your amazing grace I am free to be the child of God that You planned for me to be. Amen.

Psalm 51:6 "Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place."

A Scarlet Letter "A"

Sometimes in life, we feel like we are wearing our sins on our sleeves for all the world to see. Whether we have been in an adulterous relationship, have lied or have simply not been close to God, we can feel like every single person we meet knows all of our dirty laundry. I recently read Falling Forward by Sandi Patty and a section of her book jumped out at me. When we feel like everyone knows our secret sins, it simply is not true!

Sandi Patty tells this story in her book, ""I sometimes feels like I'll always go around with a scarlet A on my chest." I nodded, as I, too, know the heavy burden of feeling eternally labelled as "That Famous Christian Singer Who Sinned Big-time."

Then she continued, "Yesterday as I was trying to take a nap, I was so tired, but sleep wouldn't come. Then this clear mental image floated into my mind, and I can't help but wonder if it was God's message of encouragement - not only to us, but to all women who feel unworthy to hold their heads up as God's daughters. In my mind I saw every one of the thousands of women at the convention center this weekend wearing a scarlet letter A on her chest. Sometimes the A stood for adultery, but other times it stood for abortion or anger or addiction. Some stood for abuse victim, some were branded with anorexia or appetite, and some wore the label of abandoned. I realized it isn't just the big public failures that weight us down as women. We're all sporting some sort of invisible label that feels heavy on our hearts."

"Isn't that interesting?" I commented, curious.

"Yes, well, it gets even more interesting. As I got a closer look, I could see that the A on every woman's chest actually stood for atoned - which means paid for in full - and that letter was scarlet because it was written in Christ's blood."

At this point, I threw up my hands and said, "That is amazing! What a beautiful picture of grace. If we could only see what God sees, we'd hold our heads up and be free!" (Falling Forward, Sandy Patty, page 8).

As for myself, I wear a multitude of scarlet A's on my chest (anger, appetite, alone, abandoned, anxiety), but the one scarlet A that takes precedence over all of the other letter A's is that I have been atoned - I have been forgiven through the grace of God and through the awesome actions of his son, Jesus. Not all of the scarlet letters that I wear start with the letter A. I also wear the baggage of sadness, depression, hatred and stoicism.

Another Woman of Faith, Sheila Walsh says the following about our scarlet letters. "And the greatest thing I discovered [was that I could be] fully known and fully. loved. Jesus knew the worst and He loved me. What a relief to know the worst about yourself and at the same moment be embraced by God. It's so liberating to reach the end of yourself." (Falling Forward, Sandi Patty, page 13).

What are some of the scarlet letters that you wear on a daily basis? Do you wear the wonderful badge of being atoned? How do you deal with knowing that you wear a scarlet letter A on your chest? Do you cry out to God and ask for His mercy? Do you just feel like crawling into a corner to hide from the world? Or do yo remember that the best scarlet letter that you wear is ATONED!

What Is Your Clique?

What Is Your Clique?

The Lord has been asking me lately to describe myself to him (as I see myself) and for the last few days I have been trying figure out what exactly it is that he is asking of me. Last night I had a lot of problems sleeping and it was driving me crazy... however, the question popped into my head "What is your clique?"

I thought "is this ever strange... I have not heard this word since high school, IT MUST BE A GOD THING!" The next thing I knew, I was thinking about the good ol' days of high school and how mercilessly we used to define our classmates and put them into the appropriate clique:

1. the head cheerleader
2. the quarterback of the school's football team
3. the all-around jock
4. the stoner
5. the brainiac
6. and finally the clique that I meshed quite nicely into THE BAND GEEK.

At this point I was thoroughly exhausted and started to pray to God for a little rest, but he wasn't done with me yet. God then said to me, " That is how you identified others when you were young, I want you to think about how you identify people where you work and play."

I knew that this point that God was trying to teach me something. I work at a prison and spend time around some of society's "unacceptable people". Because of the negativeness of the work environment, people often take to off-colour humor to relieve the stress. Very often "colourful" words are used and although I try very hard not to engage in such behavior, a "colourful" word has slipped through my lips (more about how I am working on that in another post).

God continued to throw questions at me,

"How do you think I label the offenders that you work around? How do you think I label members of your family? What label would I put on you?"

Okay, now I was totally done in for and started thinking about all of the Bible stories I had read to my children and two stories seemed to keep popping into my head: the adulterous woman and the paralytic.

John 8:2-11 (The Message)Jesus went across to Mount Olives, but he was soon back in the Temple again. Swarms of people came to him. He sat down and taught them.

The religion scholars and Pharisees led in a woman who had been caught in an act of adultery. They stood her in plain sight of everyone and said "Teacher, this woman was caught red-handed in the act of adultery. Moses, in the Law, gives orders to stone such persons. What do you say? " They were trying to trap him into saying something incriminating so they could bring charges against him.

Jesus bent down and wront with his finger in the dirt. They kept at him, badgering him. He straightened up and said, "The sinless one among you, go first; "Throw the stone." Bending down again, he wrote some more in the dirt.

Hearing that, they walked away, one after another, beginning with the oldest. The woman was left alone. Jesus stood up and spoke to her. "Woman, where are they? Does no one condemn you?

"No one, Master"

"Neither do I," said Jesus. "Go on your way. From now on, don't sin."

It was then that I really got it... God only has one label for all: SINNER.

My family, my friends, my acquaintances, my co-workers, MYSELF... we are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God. It is like my pastor as stated many a time, if you break one of the Ten Commandments, then you have broken them all. No one's sins are any better or any worse than another's. Just because the particular sins that I have committed in the past are not seen as criminal in the eyes of the world, doesn't mean that I am a better person or Christian than someone who has stolen or murdered.

This was definitely a hard pill for me to swallow, but one that I needed to learn. It does not mean that God wants me to not be on guard and cautious at the workplace, but that I need to not think of myself any more highly than I should.