Let Your Mask Down

Marion’s husband was in the hospital fighting cancer. Chemotherapy was tearing his body apart, and the pain around her heart was turning it to stone. It hurt too much to feel. She could not bear to watch him fight for a healing that might never happen. Her pain imprisoned her, and she erected a wall to protect her broken heart. As she walked down the hospital corridor one evening, she saw a little old woman in the room next to her husband's, sitting up in bed shivering uncontrollably.

“Give her your favorite shawl,” Marion heard in her mind. She ignored the words, but they would not go away. Finally, in an attempt to get the voice out of her head, she brought her shawl to the hospital. With everything else going on in her shattered life, this was just another chore. She decided to leave the shawl on the woman's bed, but the little lady was still sitting up in bed crying. Moving closer to her, Marion placed the shawl around the woman's shoulders, and a pair of thankful eyes looked up at her and melted her stony heart. With that one act of kindness, the wall that had held back her own pain was suddenly released, and the healing love of the Holy Spirit gave Marion freedom in the arms of the little woman in the next room.

"We are not like Moses," Paul imparts, "who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:13-18 NIV).

Christ sets me free from the “old covenant veil” I hold in place so others do not see my vulnerability and pain. My mind and heart do not have to be dull and hard. I don’t need a mask to hide joy that has faded because I don't want others to know. Where the Holy Spirit is, I have the liberty—I have the freedom—I have the intentional vulnerability, the trust, the faith, and the purpose to lay my heart before others so that there may be healing for those the Lord entrusts to me. And healing for me.

When my heart yields completely to the Holy Spirit, it becomes one of tender “spiritual flesh”. It becomes malleable, vulnerable, and not afraid of the pain that often accompanies healing. It is a heart ready to face the hurt of the past or the present head-on, and allow the Holy Spirit to do whatever is necessary. Willing to deal with whatever must be dealt with, this heart trusts that Lord, who has exposed the pain, is capable of healing all that has caused it.

When allowing her mask to come down, Marion discovered the healing of heart which would carry her through her husband’s battles. Her perspective completely changed when she allowed the Lord’s voice to direct her actions. Are you hiding behind a wall of pain instead of allowing the Holy Spirit to remove your mask?  This could be your day of freedom.

© 2018 Lynn Lacher

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