Facade: Behind the Mask

I remember way back when I was in middle school in my seventh grade year I was having my quiet time with God and became aware that I was (or came across) as three different people. I was the boy at home, the friend at school, and the youth at church; each of these having to be slightly different, partly me and partly not me sometimes. I decided then that I was just going to be me, that anything else was putting on fronts or being hypocritical.

Sometimes as a minister I feel I have to put on a front... this does not mean I am not myself, but sometimes it feels like I cannot be completely myself for fear of judging or fear that if I am feeling down, people will merely tell me to trust God... that things will work out in the end - so I should not worry. But cliché sayings do not help anyone, nor does trying to get anyone to ignore how they feel, because how someone feels is true to them, something they just cannot un-feel. Emotions can be distracted or substituted, such as inviting someone feeling down to go out to eat or trying to interject a joke in hope it will evoke laughter, maybe even give someone some joy. This does not deny the initial emotion but accepts it and hopes to evoke change from the negative into the positive.

 

I feel like the last few weeks I have been a facade, a person wearing a mask. I love hanging-out with my friends but for some reason I have been down the last few weeks. A lot of it has been questions about God and myself... and I find myself going from being really down to being ok and then back again. It just seems like this cloud lately that I cannot shake off for some reason, where usually I might be down a day or so and then I am fine. The last few days I have really began to miss my home and my family; there is something refreshing about being with my family, something that I do not get elsewhere.

~ Daniel