Have you ever looked in the mirror and asked yourself what masks you need to shed? What filters are layered onto your soul, to keep the world from causing pain?
Fear.
Bitterness.
Revenge.
Self-sufficiency.
Regret.
Lack of forgiveness.
Anger.
Low Expectations.
Insecurity.
Arrogance.
Illusion of wealth.
Others?
My friend Bill talks about how he gradually realized that he tended to change his whole personality based on the attitude of every person he talked to. As the manager of a busy auto shop, he talked to dozens or hundreds of people a day. That meant he flip flopped mannerisms all day long.
One day the pressure of being everything to everyone bubbled over. Bill went home and stared in the mirror and realized there were so many faces looking back at him — he could hardly tell which was the real Bill.
He decided then and there that he was going to do whatever it took to become one single man, with one core set of values, and one personality that didn’t shift based on his environment.
How did you decide which one to be? I asked.
The one I actually LIKED, Bill chuckled. The one I wanted to grow old with and have my kids remember me by.
Living One Face is an evolutionary experience.
You’re never going to have exactly the same face from one year to the next because you’re growing.
Changing.
Adapting.
Improving.
Rejecting old things.
Embracing new ones.
Just like a flower is perfect as a seed, and then perfect as a little blade, and then perfect as a bud and then perfect as a beautiful bloom — you can live one face without staying exactly the same.
Any time you’ve been deeply wounded and you’re trying to heal, your one face is going to experience multiple evolutions as you progress through stages on your journey toward wholeness.
Your one face will be different in a year than it is today. And even more different in three years or five years or ten years.
This doesn’t have to mean you’re living with multiple faces.
The essential ingredient? An unwavering commitment to traits like honesty, redemption, forgiveness, personal responsibility, growth, and grace — at every step of the way. Dedication to these qualities means even an evolving face can stay transparent throughout the trajectory of your experience.
Are you ever finished healing?
Nah. Not this side of heaven, I don’t think.
Gaping wounds may turn to scars.
Bitterness becomes forgiveness and compassion.
Frozen inability to trust transforms into greater intuition for who and how to trust wisely along your evolutionary experience.
But are you ever fully and totally healed as though it never happened? Probably not.
And that’s okay. If we were able to heal that fully on this earth, we wouldn’t need Jesus to be our redeemer. Remember… pain isn’t the enemy. Sin is.
Sometimes it takes pain to help us grasp just how much we need Jesus. If we can remember that, when life feels dark and terrifying, we have a chance to come out the other side wielding the lessons of wisdom that can only be learned from the pain.
I hear people say, “Life as a Christian on this earth is HARD.” I totally disagree.
Life is what’s hard.
Life on this earth — it’s brutal.
It breaks us apart and throws us down hard.
But life with Jesus?
That’s the only thing that makes this hard life worth living.
That’s what makes it survivable.
He’s where I find the courage to #ShedTheMask and #Live1Face.
Reprinted with permission from Sarah’s blog. You can purchase Sarah’s book here: ONE FACE: Shed the Mask, Own Your Values, and Lead Wisely.
