‘How do you feel now?’
I stand there, my head bowed, my body stiff as I contain the pain raging inside. What do I say?
‘Are you feeling better?’
I bite down on my lip. ‘A little, yes, thank you.’
But inside I am berating myself. That’s not true, is it? I don’t feel a little better at all. If anything, I feel worse, the pain made somehow more obvious by the prayer. I feel just that bit smaller, that bit more invisible, the real me hiding behind the reality that once again, I am not healed. Once again, I have let somebody down, someone who wanted to pray with me, to see me set free from the pain which holds me in fierce bonds.
You see, this is my mask. This is the face I put on. It’s the face I have put on all my life, growing up with a degenerative lung disease. And it’s the face I sometimes put on with God, too……
Read the rest here: Embracing the broken
I’m guest blogging over at Claire Musters’ website today, all about how we sometimes pretend and how much authenticity matters. I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences.
Claire has recently written an amazing book, Taking off the Mask. ‘Too often we hide our true selves from the world behind masks we have carefully constructed, but this is not how God created us to be . Through her own personal story Claire Musters shows how it is possible to take off these masks and live a freer and more authentic life.’