Are you wearing a mask to church or any public place?

I'm in my room meditating and all of a sudden the Lord begins to deal with me on something I have been thinking about for a long time. How many of us are wearing a mask to church or any public place?

I am concerned that many of us are not being ourselves in public. Let me talk about church for a minute. I truly believe that many people come to church and wear a 'blessed and highly favor" mask covering up an "I'm hurting and need some help" reality on our face. Is the church a place where people can be transparent, open and honest? I'm not sure. Yet I'm concerned that many do not want to be honest about what they are going through because of fear of what others will say and if their business will be spread to their detriment.

As far as other public places, again my concern is that in society we would rather masquerade who we really are instead of being real about what is going on with us. To me, this speaks to the deficit of trust that is so prevalent in our world today. I think it is sad that we have a hard time admitting when we are hurting, when we are depressed, when we are thinking about committing suicide and when we are angry.

I read a status on facebook yesterday asking why so many teens and children (speaking in African-American context) are angry. I believe it is because there is a lack of love and nurture in our world. I will focus on that later. However I also believe that many are angry because they do not have proper channels to express what is going on. They would rather hide how they feel about their lives instead of expressing themselves to people who care (or are suppose to care). Maybe this is the reason why so many teens, and possibly adults share whatever they want on social networking because they don't have close people they trust....hmmmm.

My prayer is that we can get to a point where we can be honest, real and transparent about how we are feeling about life without fear of being ridiculed, talked about, picked on and laughed at. The church should be one of the greatest places of transparency, being real and honesty. Unfortunately I'm not sure many would say that the church is the place of being yourself. Life is too short to hold in anger, frustration, etc., and mask it up. Let's be able to be real with one another about how we feel.