It's been a struggle to write lately. I try. I sit down and I start, but nothing seems to come out quite right. The words feel forced and like they aren't coming from the real me. They are from the me who has been instructed for years to keep it together. Even in the places where I discovered the concept of genuine and authentic, ultimately the message I received was leaders do not let themselves show that much emotion. How am I suppose to function that way? How am I suppose to go through life tamping down my emotion? I'm discovering that it is similar to tamping gunpowder into a musket. Eventually.... It goes off. Eventually my body can't handle the strain any longer. I start having headaches, panic attacks and tension that turns my entire back into a mess of knots.
Sunday as I sat in the auditorium of the church we've been attending over the past few months, God sent a reminder in the message. A reminder of the masks that the Pharisee's lived behind every day. It was a much needed wake-up call for me. It made me remember the 30 year old who had tearfully wrestled with God about changing churches nearly 5 years ago. It made me remember the 32 year old who left what many saw as a secure job in nursing to follow a calling God placed in her heart. It made me realize that somewhere along the way, while being on staff in a church, in the place most people would think you'd be closest to God, I lost sight of how He wanted to care for me. I lost sight of my faith somehow. The faith that made Abraham pack up and take a journey for which there was no map. The faith that sustained Joseph even in the prisons of Egypt, that allowed him to continue to believe in a crazy dream that God had given him. It had faded in my life. Somehow I began to rely on the things I could see. The way things had always been done in the past. I believed the messages of I wasn't as talented as others, therefore I didn't really make sense where I was. I let myself become persuaded to initially agree to a job that I wasn't suited to as a potential means to an end because it made sense. And somehow agreeing to all of those things I lost who I was.
God's brought some rather interesting things into my life in the last week that have had me re-evaluating and re-discovering myself. The first is a program called Dressing Your Truth. It's a program designed to help women discover who they are and how they can best present themselves in a way that enhances their natural-God given beauty and personality. For me, having taken personality tests, DISC profiles and extensive counseling, I was pretty impressed at how one particular type of beauty/energy they described fit me. It was like seeing the potential in myself through someone else's eyes. (As a squirrel side note: I discovered I have curly hair. That was super exciting for me!) The really crazy thing is that I had started this make-over process before hearing the message on Sunday about Hypocrisy. Earlier in the week I had begun to sort through the clothes in my closet searching for what they refer to as Type 2 colors as the best reflection of who I am as a person.
As I sat listening to the pastor I realized that I had already begun the process of pushing away the lie of the masks I had begun to wear again. I want to live as the truest version of myself! I don't want to be what someone else tries to convince me I need to be in order to be effective. God created me with everything I need to be effective in the role He has called me to fill. Since it's my own unique role it's not going to look like anyone else. Even mentors, who I greatly admire will look different as they live out their unique call. I'm called to learn from them, not be them.
Today, as a date my husband and I went to see Disney's new Pixar film Inside Out. While many have commented on it's cuteness, I suspected going into it that it would be an extremely emotional film for me. I wasn't wrong (I'm starting to know myself well...). As the story-line progressed, I recognized something about myself. Much like the trailers for the film show there is a lot of attempting to suppress Sadness. To not let it have it's way in the story of our lives. I tend to try to do that myself a lot. Somewhere along the line I bought into the belief that sadness is an emotion that is not acceptable. That it is an emotion to be hidden. The thing I took away from an animated children's film is that we experience the greatest joy after we've acknowledged the sadness that exists in our lives. The truth, I've experienced great sadness this year. I cry when it seems like I see my friends moving on, celebrating the addition of others to their lives, when it feels like I've been forgotten. I realized today that I spend a lot of time apologizing for this necessary emotion, rejecting it's existence and hiding behind a false mask of joy. When I do that, when I deny sadness it's crucial role in my life, I deny a part of who I am. There's a saying "Don't cry that it's over, smile that it happened." I'm not sure I agree with that anymore. I'm not so sure that the smile isn't a mask we use to reject the sadness we don't want to experience. Cry that it's over. Mourn the loss of something that was special. Because only by experiencing the sadness is it possible to experience the joy to it's fullest.
So what do a make-over, a sermon and a Pixar movie have in common? Well, in my life they share a message that God seemed determined to get across. Live in who you were created to be, allow yourself to experience every piece of life and stop hiding behind the masks.
