Letting go can be so hard.
It seems that after our mask has been on for so long that who we are truly morphs into what the mask once portrayed.
Wrecked has been going in a new direction…
And we have many submissions to be posted.
There are so many hurting people… so many stories of pain and redemption and grace.
This is our first one.
Subscribe and stay tuned for many more to come.
The author asked to remain anonymous but speaks with such truth and authenticity that hits to the bone.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Andre Berthiaume once said, “We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin.” And I don’t know if truer words have ever been spoken.
I look around me and everyone has these masks on. These smiles that say “oh I’m fine.” And they are everywhere.
In high school I felt like the only one whose world was falling apart. My family was falling apart in front of my eyes. I had to face some of the abuse from my past, and it was tearing my life apart. I was in therapy, which I hated, and on medication I didn’t want to take. I took a knife to my arm every day and self-injury became the only thing that let me breathe. It took the stress away.
And No one understood.
Probably because no one knew besides my mom. My friend’s lives were perfect, and so mine had to be perfect to.
So I invested in long sleeves, and told everyone I was volunteering when I was really in therapy. I spent more time outside my house in high school than I did living under that roof. But still I was fine.
I was the volunteer. The athlete. Involved in my church. And my family pulled it together in public. Like nothing had ever happened. We had those beach photos where everyone’s in white and smiling.
We were perfect on the outside.
But inside those walls… We never talked except when we were yelling. My family was falling apart and we hated each other. And my life was shattering into pieces in front of my eyes. And my abuse came out. And my mom collapsed. All the work she had done to make my family look and seem so perfect. She chose the image over me.
And I was done and cutting became my escape. But when my mom found out she sent me to counseling out of the county to protect our “family” image.
And I was told I needed to get it together. And so I did. I became my mask. And my problems grew, but no one knew what was happening except me. And if I know one thing it’s that the masks we wear suffocate us.
Because I died a little bit everyday.
And it took coming to college to start to remove the layers that I had caked on my face for years. And it hurt like hell to peel off layer by layer. And everytime I did, I do, it removes a piece of who I am.
But if I’m honest, I hate removing my mask. I hate letting go. Because I know who I am. I’m someone who was abused, I’m an ex-cutter, I was on anti-depressants. But I’m here. But for some reason its hard to let go of who I was. Rather than accept who I am now in Christ.
It’s hard to move on. And sometimes I don’t want to.
Sometimes I want to hold on to my mask and my secrets. Because I’m comfortable with being broken. And it’s hard to pick up the pieces and tear off the mask. Because what if it takes apart of my skin, and my heart with it?
But the beauty of taking the mask off, is the ability to see clearly, breathe deeper, and fully experience the grace and blood of Christ as it coats us, brokenness and all.
But despite this reality, there are still days when I love my mask more than Christ. And it’s on those days that I have to fall on my knees and cry out to the God I once hated. Cry out and know that He still hears prayers in his throne room up in heaven. And he has a plan.
He has a plan even when I don’t want to let go.
And so yeah I’m wrecked. I’m broken into millions of pieces. But the beauty of the brokenness is that I get to watch God put me back together in his image. Broken, bloody, abused, and all.