Trick or Treat! ohhh...I'm a little late on this one, aren't I?
Over the last couple of days, this phrase has been said many, many times by young and old alike. We encouraged our youngsters to don masks and costumes, soliciting treats from the neighborhood. Children were excited to dress up as their favorite super hero or maybe even a witch or a ghost. At the end of the night, they returned with a bounty of chocolate, gummies and other various sugar filled treats. Many people have gone to costume parties with their friends, anticipating who would be the most creative, scariest or funniest character in attendance. The end of October comes and goes every year with the same fanfare of masquerade.
It is the rest of the year that has been on my heart recently. I had originally thought about the masks that adults wear every day, but it occurred to me that there are many children wearing masks also. They come in about as many varieties as one can find at a Halloween store. Some examples are: "I've got it all together", "things are great at home", "class (or office) clown", "victim", "air headed", "tough guy", "bully", "obnoxious", and "helpless". These are the social masks we may wear daily. These masks are the ones that hide our insecurities with hopes of being accepted, even if it's not really ourselves who are being received. They hide our pains, our shame, our fears, our sadness and our vulnerabilities. They hide things that we naively believe nobody else has ever experienced. Often times, we lack the confidence to allow people to know us for who we really are or what we've been through. After all, nobody could ever welcome us...if they really knew...
I want to encourage you today to take off your social mask(s). Take the first steps to uncover the person who lives deep within. Dig down to your core and think about what masks you wear and why you wear them. If you're not really sure, take some time in prayer and ask God to uncover the truth for you. Remove the layers of your facade, and begin to enjoy your life being you, being who you were created to be!
