Taking my mask off

You know those movies like Cinderella where Prince Charming had to run throughout the town looking for his princess using a glass slipper he found bc he couldn’t remember her face? Well, they depict it like fairy godmother changed the way she looked but she probably went to a masquerade ball where everyone was wearing these luxurious masks and no one could tell who every one was.

I bring this up because that’s how I’ve lived a lot of my spiritual life, masking things to hide my shame, guilt, and sins. So, I wanted to take that off, strip some layers and give you my testimony.

I found Christ at a very young age. I was destined to be a Christian because honestly, I was exposed to it 24/7 for 18 years of my life. And I’m super grateful for that looking back at it. However, I’ve had some not so great moments. My first major thing that I remember is that I was a Christian without a testimony. I was a born into Christianity kind of believer and I didn’t know any other way. So, when asked at a young age what my testimony was I panicked, I said, “I don’t have one.” And they questioned me like I was a criminal being investigated for a crime. Truth is, I really hadnt thought on it long enough to give a good testimony. So, I told them that I doubted God, which is partly true (mask number 1). I didn’t doubt who He was, but I lacked the understanding of who I was through Him so I could never quite understand God. You see, I’m a very logical person, probably to a fault, so when being told that a higher power created us from nothing in 7 days I was obviously a little sus, because none of that makes sense when you really think about it. So, when the devil gets a foothold he pushes right on through, and that’s what I gave him when I told this person that I was having doubts about God, satan used that accordingly and thus starting a mental war that lasted for the greater part of 10 years.

Overtime, I started to notice that I was having more and more doubts, but each time I would just shove those thoughts out of my mind and try and stay as logical and optimistic as I could. Until about middle school, now, I was stronger in my faith but adding onto doubtful thoughts came this little thing called comparison. This was the first time I was exposed to Snapchat and Instagram and Facebook, it’s like in the span of 3 years everything was at my fingertips. I remember having a LG shine phone in 6th grade and in 7th grade I had an iPhone 3G (the OG). Now, everything was expendable, everything was out in the open and that caused me to stumble. Along with my thoughts of doubts, I now am facing comparing myself to every other person on the internet, and my classmates, and my church friends. It’s like all of a sudden I’m noticing that I’m inadequate, and Satan is reminding me just of that.

Between my 9th and 10th grades, I had an existential crisis. I had surgery on my knee, I was leaving my home church, I was facing comparison, I was trying to find my place in school bc I could now no longer play the sport I did truly love, I had doubts, and on top of everything I moved to a different church trying to make friends. This used to not be a problem for me, but it’s still is a terrifying thing when you go into a new established church and trying to make new friends, new mentors, new experiences, trying to stay positive and open minded but not too much, so I could use my discernment. Honestly, it was all too much, but I put on a happy face (mask number 2). And Spring break of my 10th grade year will be embedded in my brain forever, that was the time I had my first panic attack. It wasn’t long-lived, but it was the first time where I truly understood that I was having anxiety, so it lives rent free in my head forever.

So now, I’m dealing with thoughts of doubts, thoughts of comparison and now I have anxiety about everything. I remember trying to confide in some people about my anxiety and this is what I would get told, “you don’t have strong enough faith,” “what do you have to be anxious for,” “the Bible says be anxious for nothing but cast your cares on Him(1 Peter 5:7).” My responses, “oh, I’ll work on that, friend that was supposed to help me.” “I get my life isn’t as hard as yours and I’m sorry I brought up my hardships.” “I know what the Bible says, now can you tell me how to do that.” After a while, I stopped telling people (Mask number 3) and that caused way more harm than good.

My 11th grade year, I started dating my first boyfriend. You know how young relationships are, you think you know best and Youre in love and it will last forever, but in reality there’s something deep within your soul telling you this is probably not gonna work out. But you push that voice to the side and continue dating anyway. You think that now you have someone that you can count on, someone that will fix the loneliness you feel in your heart, someone who will fix all your problems. Well, I’m living proof that that doesn’t work. It wasn’t fair for me to put all of that pressure on him, he couldn’t give me what I obviously needed from Jesus. We dated for three and half years, stayed friends for another year after until we officially went our separate ways. That was me trying to hold onto something that I thought I wanted (Mask number 4), but in reality I just didn’t want to face my skeletons in the closet that were so evidently there.

Now I’m dealing with heartbreak, doubts, comparison, anxiety, and loneliness. Let’s skip to 2020, this one’s a doozy. Not only is the world in complete disarray, now I was starting a new graduate program and whole new levels of stress were being added. I remember being so worked up about a test that I had, that I was panicking. Literally in my bed freaking out, crying, shaking, yelling, aggravated, because nothing was making sense in my head. Absolutely nothing. That moment, I think, triggered my mom into thinking maybe I was struggling with something more than test anxiety, and come to find out, she was right. At the bright young age of 22, I was diagnosed with ADHD. This hit me like a truck. Now, after all these years of school and test anxiety and frustrations, it’s all because I have adhd. My entire identity was shattered. First my identity was found in social media, then it was found in a guy, and now the one thing that’s been consistent in my life (school) I struggle with it. I was an averagely smart person, and I had/have big aspirations for my life, and most involved school, so when you tell me I now have a learning disability it rocked me. I started getting so angry with God.

Until.... I started noticing something that I did, let’s call it a coping mechanism, I would mask all of my struggles and make them to be nothing more than a little bump in the road. I’d put a genuine smile on my face and I’d play the part of Christian. But there are moments when you get knocked down and the mask comes off and you have to face reality. The summer of 2021 was that for me, this was the first time God stopped me in my tracks and told me all the things that I needed, not the things that I wanted, funny how He does that.

Here’s the thing, all of that shaped me and it all lead me to these conclusions. I never truly doubted God but I was a curious person with questions that people couldn't answer so I stopped asking people and I had to find them for myself in God's word. I compared myself to social media models and celebrities, so I had to work harder in finding the God who created me fearfully and wonderfully (Psalm 139:14). I started having panic attacks because Satan saw something in me that he was scared of, so he planted seeds into my head and I allowed them to fester. I had faith in God, I didn’t have a lot of problems, and I did cast my anxieties onto Jesus; but without professional help sometimes, there isn’t much else I can do, and sometimes it's better to talk to a professional than people who are close to you. I found my identity in a guy that I knew wasn’t right for me, and God used that circumstance to teach me to forgive, to extend love, and to focus on Him. He taught me about heartbreak, and how all things are mended through Him (Psalm 147:3 He heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds.) And lastly, just because I’ve been diagnosed with something doesn’t mean that I am that diagnosis (Genesis 1:26 - God is my identity.) It just means that I learn differently from everyone else. In that season, I really had to trust God and trust people around me, because my instincts were no longer getting me through, my masks were no longer saving face. In all of those seasons, I had to learn who held my hand through everything, His name is Jesus (Genesis 16:13 - You are the God who sees me.)

This was a hard post for me to write, I'll admit. My pride gets in the way a lot because I don't want people to see the sensitive softer sides of me, again masking; but I wanted to share this part of my story because maybe, just maybe, someone out there can relate.

Thanks for reading,

Em