Ripping Off Masks

Yesterday at church the pastor came in to talk to our small group about the plan for the next sermon series/initiative. He asked how we had seen God work through our group or through the church. One of my good friends told about how, when her husband had been very sick, the class had come and helped with things around the house and mowed their lawn all summer. She mentioned that she hadn't wanted to ask for help, but I'd sort of made her. I remembered her finally asking the class to pray for her, and someone said, "Do you need help with anything?" And she was hemming nad hawing and saying, "No, not really." And I just looked over at her, and said to the group, "Yes. She does."
Yesterday as she reflected, she said, "It hadn't really registered to me that I could even ask for help, I was so busy just trying to hold things together." Pastor Bob talked about authentic community, and he said, "Kristin saw past Karen's mask so she could get the help she needed."
I jokingly said, "I ripped that mask right off."
Later I thought about it and realized I think that's what I'm good at.
We did this Bible study book called Restless by Jennie Allen, about how we search for our "purpose" or whatever, and how God wants to fulfill that in us. Whatever. The book had you do some navel gazing and try to put the threads of your past--the good and bad things that made you into who you are--together and see the pattern God was weaving. I didn't really see one.
BUt I've been thinking about it, and yesterday I realized that I kind of like taking peoples' masks off. I don't do it that often, but the older I get, the more I do it. I'm learning the art of it, of being real and (hopefully) letting other people be open and real with me too.
I used to be afraid to. I used to never say anything, even when I could see some deeper need or see that someone was hiding something. I just let it go figuring they'd open up if they wanted to. I thought I was sort of failing when people didn't. But I think, what was happening, was they thought they'd fooled me, just like they fooled the rest of the world. But, while I'm pretty clueless about a lot of things, I'm pretty good at finding fake.
I'm kind of shy. A long time ago I was really shy. In middle school and high school, I would never ask prodding questions or bug people about what was on their minds. I'm pretty good at keeping shallow. I think we all are. But it made me really dissatisfied in some relationships, because I wanted to know those friends better. I wanted them to know me, too.
My best friends were the ones who saw through my masks.
All of our best friends are the ones who see through our masks. Who tear them off and say "No. We're not going to keep being shallow like this. I want to know more than what you made for supper and what your kids did last week. I want to know YOU."
It's work. And I still suck at it because I get afraid. I don't want to make people uncomfortable so I just sort of settle for that place where we just brush the surface of all the things that matter. That's what people like.
But that's what's keeping me (and everyone else) from having meaningful relationships. From true community.
That's what makes me frustrated when we're sitting around talking about TV shows and movies and dinner and decorating. I see your soul sometimes in those shallow encounters, and I don't want to talk about things that don't matter. I want to talk about why you're hiding and what you're hiding from.
I want to be a truth-seeker, and a truth-speaker.
In the age of social media where everyone's busy painting their best faces on for the public world, we need it all the more. We need people who tear off masks. We need to BE people who tear off masks. Our own, and others'.
If we aren't OK with brokenness and imperfection in others, we aren't OK with it in ourselves. And we miss out on the perfect promise of God, that in our weakness, He is strong. That His grace fills all of our emptiness, and that we are complete in Him.