Being Transparent

Will the Real Faith Please Stand Up?

When I was growing up there was a game show that had three people and two were pretending to be the real person. All of us wear masks. We are different people depending on whom we are with. There are very few us that are transparent with everyone exactly the same. We have different levels of whom we share personal information with and how deep the transparency goes.

I lived many years of my life pretending that I had it all together! That is the image that I wanted everyone to see. When I was a young mom people would say, you have the perfect family, the perfect life. How can you be so together? That was the image I wanted to portray. Looking back I realize that I wasn't together at all. There was so much I didn't know, so much I had to learn, so many mistakes that I was making as a wife as well as a mother. No one comes from a perfect family, is part of a perfect family or is perfect as an individual. We all have and live with imperfections. The question stands, how much of my imperfections am I willing to allow you to see? 

Why do we wear masks? The first thing that comes to mind is as we grow older, we become more cynical. It becomes harder to trust people. People have let us down and others are judgmental. As kids we learn to build walls when people have disappointed us or it doesn’t feel safe. There is wisdom in choosing whom you put your trust in. It takes self-confidence to be able to be transparent with others but there is also freedom in allowing others to see who we really are. We can pick and choose how transparent we can be and what environment we should be transparent. If you are in a room full of people who make it a habit to gossip, that probably isn't a wise place to share of all of your personal history and current shortcomings. 

God uses everything in our life whether they are good or bad experiences. Someone else can learn from our mistakes and failures, our trials and tribulations. Still, others can learn from our vulnerabilities and the things we struggle with. God created us to be in fellowship or relationships with others. As a young mother, I struggled with my identity. I joined a bible study with other young mothers. It was so comforting to hear that other mothers were struggling with the same issues. No longer did I feel like I was walking the journey alone.

That is what life is about, walking the journey with others. God redeems even our worst moments in life when it is shared with someone else, someone who can keep a confidence and is trustworthy, not only for our own healing, but also to help someone who is walking or is going to walk a similar path as we have in the past.  Taking a risk of opening up to someone often makes us uncomfortable. We wonder if they will still like us or see us in a bad light. We just have to remember that there is not a single person who does not come with past baggage, or issues that they have to deal with. We are all imperfect beings who have made mistakes and have had bad things happen to us. But we all have a story to tell and someone else can benefit from our transparency.

Are you willing to take a risk and take the mask off?