Behind the Mask.......

A friend of mine on Facebook wrote recently:

"I'm thankful for my role model's strength as she endures a burden I wish she did not have to go through. I'm glad that her faith is strong and that she knows all will be well. All my love dear friend."

In the comment section, I replied: "Thank you"

She was not amused and wrote back: "You can be my role model, but I really don't think you want to go through the burden."

In retrospect, it occurs to me that this response tell me a lot about myself as well as my friend.

About me, it says that I'm wearing well the mask that so many of us wear around our friends/acquaintances.....the mask that says "I'm doing fine, thank you!"

About my friend, it says that she really has no idea about the trials/burdens that I am facing in my life right now, and she is content to believe the mask.

This raises more than a few questions:

Why do we wear the mask, and why do we allow our friends to wear it??

Why is it that so many of us insist on carrying our burdens alone when there are so many around us that are willing/able to help??

Who among us would not be willing to help if our friends told us the truth: "you know, I'm really struggling with some things right now. I could use a friend to talk to."

I think that we wear the mask because we are too prideful to ask for help when we need it. We percieve asking as a sign of weakness instead of a sign of humility. Yet, if your friend came to you and shared her trials, wouldn't your first response be "How can I help you through this?" We want to serve one another, yet we don't want to be served.

We allow others to wear the mask because we don't want them to know that we see through the illusion. If they want to pretend and handle things themselves, then we don't want to interfere. We don't want to overstep our boundaries. So, even though we may know that everything is not okay, we let them pretend.

As far as carrying our burdens alone, how often do we hesitate to go to our Bishops or Home/Visiting Teachers thinking 'I don't want to burden them with this, they have enough to worry about' or 'I don't want to take them away from their family, I can handle this' Yet, aren't these the very people that God has charged with our care? Isn't that the beauty of the gospel, that we have people to turn to when we need help? And who among us hasn't heard the saying that God sometimes uses other people to answer our prayers. And that doesn't only mean calling the Elder's Quorum when someone is moving in/out of the ward!!

But, so often, we continue to carry the burdens alone, and wonder why nobody notices that we're struggling. Is it any wonder they don't notice, when all the while we continue to smile and say: "I'm great, how about you?"

So, in an effort to remove the mask, I'm going to lay it out there......."You know, I'm really struggling with some things in my life right now, and I could sure use your thoughts and prayers." There....I said it. I can't/won't go into details, as I'm not certain who reads this blog, but my prayers alone aren't cutting it. So, if you wouldn't mind putting me on your 'prayer list', I would be grateful. Maybe sometime in the (hopefully not too) distant future, we can talk more about this and I can let you know that everything turned out for the best.

Thanks. I feel better already!