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The other evening, while I was dropping my little girl off for bible class at church, I passed an old friend in the hall. We exchanged greetings with smiles, and I asked her how she was doing. Her response was a chipper “Everything’s great!” She doesn’t know it, but I know that’s a lie. I was told by a mutual friend that her husband, the father of her three kids, is having an affair with a girl nearly half his age. He won’t leave her, he’s said. Their house is in foreclosure, she’s filed for divorce, and life’s a wreck.
Now, in all fairness, standing in front of a class of five-year olds is not the place to go into this. And, even though I’ve known her the better part of a quarter century, we’re not the closest of friends and I’m not her confidant - there are others whom I know are there for her. But that needn’t stop me from praying.
I often think that, were Jesus here in the flesh today, one of His biggest beefs with the modern church (the modern world, in general) is near-idolization of personal privacy coupled with egos that won’t admit need. These things have led us to schizophrenic lives, filled with the pressure to appear well manicured even while we wallow in despair and hopelessness underneath the thin veneer. But it leaves us with the quandary of how to help those who won’t admit the need for help. Encountering my friend, knowing something of her secret problems, has raised within me the desire to be more proactive about these things.
I want to go behind the mask; and I thing God has wanted us to do this all along. Beginning with the first recorded sins we find excuses for ignorance that fall flat on holy ears - Cain’s complaint that he is not his brother’s keeper is both a diversion from the truth and an excuse for his feigned ignorance. And we see throughout scripture that we are to be a community, involved in one another’s lives and sharing our needs and joys. But when things get too personal, or when it seems we might no long fit in were a situation revealed, we quite easily close up and shut out that community intended for our help and comfort. So I want to see beyond the masks that we wear, to know when (and how) to help. Not in a nosy, gossipy way, and not so that I can hold things against people; I want to be able to help as I can, ans especially to pray for them.
If the least I can do is to pray for a person, then I believe I truly done a lot. Perhaps if more of us (myself included) did not politely look the other way but took active interest in lives - especially in praying for those lives - then we would see a different world. Often, a lot more than prayer can be offered without much effort. Lives can be changed, hearts healed, and people given hope. All by seeing through a mask.
Be willing to look beyond the mask, to see the needs in lives, and do what you can for them.
I can really relate to this post, on two different levels. On one hand, I know that I have been that person with the mask on, with held, and putting on that smile, when things are just not going well.
I’m also on the other side of that, living in a community of people, who want to know and be involved in everything that those around them are doing, but don’t share the big things going on in their lives, good or bad. It’s frustrating, because it’s impossible to be close, help, or really feel considered a part of the community, when they are not including us in their lives, yet they claim that we are a community, and their friends. It makes me wonder if it’s a pride issue, that they think they can handle all and everything going on in their lives, and don’t need anybody, or if they feel like none of us would want to know. (which isn’t true) I really have felt that it’s a superficial relationship for that reason. When on the other hand, other people in the community and us, share what is going on in our lives from mundane to big things. It creates closeness, and real ness.