Behind the Mask

I've been called an extrovert more times in my life than I can remember. But I'm not, not really, not in the true sense of the word. I love to cancel plans, curl up with a good book, a blank drawing pad, or a new creative project on my laptop. I love to shut out the sounds of my life (including the ceiling fan) and just sit in perfect stillness, listening to the sounds of a world that has temporarily forgotten I am there--a helicopter overhead, someone mowing the lawn, chickens scratching in their pen. I can go two days without uttering a single word, because I'm alone and there's no one to talk to. Two months might get lonesome, but a few days of quiet are lovely. I know these days will not last, and that is all right.

When I was a kid, people thought I talked too much, laughed too loud, and had too many hair-brained ideas. Sometimes I think, really? Did you not see me holding back tears and hiding behind my mama's skirt because I was too shy to walk into the church potluck by myself? Did you not see me spending hours in my hay fort, conjuring up fanciful tales in fictional worlds, playing in a universe completely removed from this one? Evidently not.

But I am loud, sometimes. I don't always cancel plans. Sometimes I'm raring to go. It is greatly satisfying to set off a crowd of friends in laughter that can't be quelled. But after a few hours of fun and games, I'm ready to go to a quiet, lonely place. Even when the cousins visit and we vow to stay up all night making once-in-a-lifetime memories, I fade away and creep off to my room for a little bit of solace before going to bed, hours before the rest of the house dies down.

People think that because I can say plainly whatever I perceive to be true, that I actually do say it fearlessly all the time. I've been told I'm a great evangelist, by someone who's never seen me struggle through actually witnessing to someone. Wow, did that one ever get called wrong. Please don't tell people things about me that are the antithesis of reality! Just because I don't particularly care what people think about me, doesn't mean that I readily do things I know will bring me into conflict with them. Even when I staunchly disagree, I'd just as soon keep quiet and ride it out. This is often a fault.

I gave a speech at my college graduation. People liked it, at the time (most have forgotten it by now). Afterwards: "Brenna, come speak to our church youth!" Me: "No!" (OK, I didn't say it like that.) Once again, they think I am something I am not.

Sometimes I wonder, am I inconsistent? Am I one way here, another way someplace else, and a third personality at other times? Am I so tossed about by every wind that I cannot be--or even know--what (or who) I really am? Others I have talked to feel the same. Why do other people have us pegged so wrong? Are they clueless, or are we wearing masks?

The answer is not complicated. When people view us (and we them), they peer out at the world through a lens that is distorted, warping and shading their perception. We've all got a lens immovably fastened in front of our eyes. Some things we see clearly, at a certain angle, when the light is just right--and we are actually looking. Most things we see mostly clearly, but not all the way. That is part and parcel with being human. We're biased. Jaded. Naive. We only see a fraction of the whole, the outside mask concealing the interior. We're confidently dead wrong.

But the all-seeing eye of the Lord is not so. The heart of man is bare before him. He is not misled by extroversion on Tuesday nights or introversion on Fridays. He masterminded the wonderfully complex, soul-possessing mechanism that is humankind, with all its tics and traits. He has no lens obscuring his piercing sight. And what he demands from his creations is not nearly as complicated or burdensome as we imagine it to be. He does not give stipulations individual to shyness or flamboyance. 

Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly with your God.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart.

Take up your cross and follow Me.

Masks and warped lenses will all be cast aside, and each will stand before the throne alone. Those who seek to mend their flaws apart from the cross will fall and fall hard. Self-study and self-discovery showcase only more and more of Self--that ugly creature whose presence I already war against. But those who lift up their eyes to Jesus, the author and finisher of their faith who began a good work and is faithful to complete it, these ones will run the race, finish in victory, and receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him.  

Well done, thy good and faithful servant.