No more Masks - Yolandi

During our time in Russia we were placed into different groups and one group stayed at the camp sites and the other group had the opportunity to go to orphanages.  I was privileged enough to be in the group that went to the orphanages.  At the first orphanage we visited we helped with some renovation work they were busy with.  During this time I noticed that they just wanted us to paint over old paint without scraping the old paint off.  While painting I just felt this sense that this happens so often in our own lives.  Sometimes the old self starts to crack because of pressure.  We want to come with our paint brush (comfort zones) and plaster the new formed cracks in our masks closed again, so that no one will see the truth beneath.
 
This brings me to a verse in Luke 12:2 (Amplified Bible)
"Nothing is [so closely] covered up that it will not be revealed, or hidden that it will not be known"
 
During my time in Russia I realised that I could not cover up my old ways of thinking and feeling.  My time in Guatemala changed that.  I use to be a person that always had different masks to suit the people around me.  I use to be so good in hiding the true me so that no one could come to close.  I use to plaster and plaster each hole I found and crack I found so that no one would realize what I was truly feeling and when I was truly hurting.  I thought that this was the way to keep myself from hurt.  I all these areas and times in my life I truly tried to be in complete control of my life and not giving God the full control.  I thought that I was safe and that the cracks were nicely sealed.  How wrong can a person be.  Just looking at the process of truth in the end the old paint cracks even more and the new paint don't really mean a thing.  This was my case in the end.  I could not hide my true self anymore and God had to come and break many walls of Spiritual Paint and plastering I tried to keep in place over so many years.  It took a choice from my side to give God the full control and it was the most freeing experience ever.
 
Looking at my own life and truly seeing the children's hurt and feelings I could truly understand how easy it was for them to keep masks in front of us.  I could notice that so many of the children had a role to play and in some cases that role was not who they truly are and want to be.  My true prayer for that place would be for God to come in His fullness and to break all the masks and pretence set in those children's lives. But also for God to come and heal those places where they felt they needed to build walls to keep other from hurting them.
The journey that some of those children walk in life might be a lot harder that my life but I thank God for showing me that He can take all pain and pretence on Him.  He will come and shine the true light in those dark hidden places.  We might feel exposed in the beginning but in the end the sense of freedom and release surpasses anything and the pain is taken away.  I pray that for each child in the places we visited.
 
May God show you the truth in your life in the areas where He does not have full control.  May He bring freedom in the places of your life where you have not dealt with the pain kept deep inside.
 
Be blessed
Yolandi