Arise

This morning I was reading something one of my friends wrote, he said;

I've always thought of "masks" in certain ways (and I'm not referring to Halloween disguises, I'm talking about the fronts people put up to keep others from getting too close): the "everything in my life is just great" mask common at church on Sundays, the mask of makeup many girls wear to make themselves look "better," etc. I had always thought myself to be mask-free; I have discovered, unfortunately, that I have one of my own. It's called the "I am rough, tough, and immoveable, and I feel no pain" mask.

Wow, those words hit home. I may not hide behind the rough, "I feel no pain" mask, well... actually, now that I think about it I do. Whoa, never realized that either. Maybe that's why I don't cry (usually), or why I mock people who cry at movies- honestly there has to be something more important. The most prominent mask in my life is the common at church on Sundays mask Casey mentioned. "How's it going?" "Great, you?" "Absolutely dandy." And while this is true for me 18 out of 19 times, I don't think I would ever admit the one or two times when things aren't great.

That makes me wonder why we all want everyone to think we're absolutely perfect all the time. Aren't we aiming to be like Jesus? We might need to know who he was a bit better then- he got angry and flipped tables, called pharisees a brood of vipers, prayed so hard he sweat blood, and he wept. Jesus wept - at the loss of a dear friend. His heart went out to people. To the widow who had lost her only son- he went up and touched the source of her pain- the coffin, and brought her son back to life, he took away her reason for tears.

Jesus wasn't afraid to care deeply for people, so deeply that it caused the death of him. I don't know, maybe someday I will need to die for my Jesus, for my faith. But I will be honored to die for the one who has given me so much life. Without Him I would be dead in the first place, but he rose me from the dead of my old life.