What if it's Safer Without a Mask. A young artist Illustrates

UNMASKING 

A  10-year-old Artist: Roy Edube's illustration. 

Rushingly he dashed to my desk, holding a newly done art piece. Directly looks into my eyes, with less excitement but pausing thoughtfully. Mum, this is me! Seven months ago Roy says. My face was open, and people could see my facial expressions. Even my teeth!

Suddenly a new way of life was brought by COVID 19, and we all have to mask up. You no longer can be real! You smile wide but people don't see. 

Behind this mask is a brave, silly, strong, smart Roy. "Masks cover so much of who we are," mum. 

 He hurriedly runs out to catch the next online class.  Roy's illustration, through his art piece, was very intriguing.

Lately, I have stopped smiling when I meet people because my efforts are in vain; they do not see the smile unless I pull it to the level of my eyes. Days get longer for me when I have to be on a mask I can hardly breathe.

Well, truth be told I miss my lipgloss/stick.

Are there times in our lives, we survive on masks? What people see of us is not who we really are? Have you ever presented a different you to others? or do we have masks that give us a different image far from who we really are? Masks distort the images of who we are. They hinder people from truly recognizing who we are, and that way, people are not able to know how to love us and meet our needs. They present a fake version of who we are!

Sometimes behind those masks are human efforts and desires to please people and God. We put on masks labeled who we are not. The motives and intentions behind the masks are so we have a right standing with people and God (self-righteousness).

What about if we trust God to deal with our ugly hidden identities behind the masks? What if we trusted that God loved us no matter how messed up we are? Furthermore, when we come to Him He is interested in walking with us and clothes us with His righteousness?

Sometimes working it out looks real than trusting the Lord to help renovate us. sustaining the hard work and the masks is such a hard task.

What shape is my mask?

The authors of TrueFaced by John Lynch, Bruce McNicol, and Bill Thrall talk about three groups of masks – one is the "doing fine" folks who hide behind shallowness and avoidance of intimacy; another is the "fixers" who go hunting from one technique to the next to solve what they sense is wrong or not working, and the third they call the "pedigreed masks" which are masks anchored in self-righteousness or performance.

These masks we put on prevent very many people from considering this path with God because we make it look impossible, impractical, and unachievable. The truth is that it is achievable. Our God can handle each fear, sin, and rottenness that we hide behind those masks.

As we read these thoughts, lets kindly look into our lives and UNMASK.

I encourage every reader to use a mask physically and stay safe as we work through this pandemic.

Then Bernice decided to also join the challenge. 

END.