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After I thought I'd healed properly, I adjusted to life without.

Without what, you wonder. That is precisely my point. I had gotten so used to living without hope and without a husband and without a really good job with benefits that I had adjusted to hopeless living all the while putting on the “Joy Face” at church and with friends.

Oh, you know precisely which face I’m referring to. Joy Face is a mask of great deception to one’s self and loved ones. Often the person wearing the mask has no clue that it is, in fact, a mask. This mask has the ability to mute God's voice when it is most needed. When it slips, all the cracked pieces fall to the floor and there's this shattering, clanging cymbal sound which drowns out God's voice. Mine slipped. It is most shocking when this happens because, of course, we think we are healed and we are completely over what ever disaster made us put the Joy Face on in the first place.

Once the echoes of the sound faded away, I scrabbled around for all the pieces so I could put the mask back on. How could I face anyone without it? People would ask, “What’s wrong?” Well, the thing happened so long ago, it was just petty to be harboring any hurt or anger. At least, that was my thought process. So these emotions that had suddenly surfaced must be from something else and I just wasn't trying hard enough.

Christians are not supposed to do that, to harbor ill feelings or anger or to want revenge or even vindication. We have Jesus who takes all our hurts and replaces it with joy and peace. But, the mask just would not be put back together. It kept crumbling, and I had to face all the feelings that the mask had held back, and I was afraid. I thought I had efficiently dealt with all those things, and did not want to relive all that mess. My fear was that anger would become bitterness. I thought my heart would change, never realizing that when God works through His child's problems, He leaves a much tenderized heart with no holes or scars.

That was long after I thought I had healed, except, I kept trying to heal. I know that makes no sense, but the mere incongruity of it helps me to know God made sense of it. I was trying to do it. I was trying to make it happen when God has a perfect plan for the healing process. It involves time. I knew I had to heal in order to be a healthy, productive Christian living for Jesus and ministering, doing the works He had planned for me before the formation of the world. To be a good Christian, I had to get past all anger, hurt, desire for vindication. I could do this because I had Jesus in my heart. Right? Hmmm.

God is mightier than our feelings, however, and mightier than our fears. Behind the broken mask, I found God’s soothing voice of comfort in my heart. He was talking to me like a mother soothing a crying baby; all the while He was putting my heart back together. This is when I found out that if you do not help God put the pieces back together, they go back together without scar tissue and the heart bears no grudge, no anger, no bitterness and no baggage. This is where God’s timing is perfect although it doesn’t feel like it. No matter how strong a person is, you cannot do it by yourself. We don’t get all the nooks and crevices cleaned, so some left-behind trash starts to fester and breeds infection. If you help God put the pieces back together, you hinder the process and scars do develop encasing some anger, some bitterness and a bit of baggage within the tough, hard fibers of healing. Those are difficult to remove once the scar tissue is formed.

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow because He loved me through that period. I was in constant state of prayer. I prayed about everything and frequently prayed myself to sleep. I studied my Bible in-depth, pouring myself into study to make up for the lack of any social life except church. And I was at church every time the doors were opened. So my pouring out of myself before God accomplished something that I had no idea I needed at the time. It did unmask my need. It did help me to let go and let God, even though I had no clue of my need or that I was even holding on to some of that trash.

I poured myself into a Christian forum (one a couple of friends and I developed, not these here at Studylight), positive this was what I was supposed to do to get myself back together. But, I had closed off a section of my heart to all people, children and God. I see that now, but didn't know I was doing it then. We wonder why the fiery darts find the chinks so accurately. Any portion of ourselves that we close off, any crevice that we keep from God’s tender care, leaves an opening as large as an airport hanger door through which Satan and his minions lob their guilt bombs and fire the bullets of self-recrimination. That just adds to the depth and breadth of the scar tissue. Trying to hear God’s voice through those tough fibers is like listening to the radio underwater.

When the Joy Face falls, when the hurt heals by God’s tender mercy, then we can live full of grace and can hear God’s voice. Mostly, I realized I had used that numbing tool to keep from feeling all the pain and betrayal. It was exhilarating for those chains to drop from my hand and those shackles to be taken from my feet so I could dance with my Savior and Lord!

Satan woos... The Christian is seduced... Sin creeps in... And we have a witch's brew for web entanglement. We put on the mask of being a Christian when we least feel like it. We submerge all the anger and hurt with whatever we can hoping that time will erode all the sharp edges. We never realize that closing off part of ourselves from God just opens the door wider for sin to creep in. Then comes the justifying of sin, the reasoning of it, the excusing of it and the finger pointing when all along we must look to God to do the heart cleaning. David understood this when he wrote, "Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew within me a steadfast spirit." Without His strength and power, we are powerless to resist Satan and his plots and ploys.

Flesh + Satan = Failure.

Submission + Spirit + Jesus = Successful Christian Living.

All too often we Christians will try to substitute worldly things to fill in the God-sized hole in our spirit. We shop till we drop, we drink socially, we complain to our friends, we vacation, we beach it, we surf it, we ship it, we dance it, we smoke it, we pretend we're fine with a Joy Face when all the time our heart is full of scar tissue which we've patched together with one hand while holding the Bible in the other hand. Hopeless living, while pretending to be full of Hope, Faith and Charity. It is time to pull off the mask and let God pick up all the shattered pieces. Only He has the blueprint for a perfect fix with no cracks and no bondo because He is the Creator after all.

Several years ago I had this epiphany and wrote about this on my blog at Refreshment In Refuge. A few days ago, God called it to my mind which inspired this column. One of the most amazing things is how God works with the future in mind. I had no idea several years ago, this would be an answer to a prayer I prayed earlier this week. Isn't He amazing?

"Word from Scotland" from Sandy Shaw

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