"I Am Doing a New Thing": Unmasking the Mask & Tearing Down Walls

A defining characteristic of Asian culture is the maintenance of face for the sake of honor. Even if life is falling apart, Asian people will enter into public spaces with their masks on and convey to the rest of the world everything is alright. Sometimes we wear masks and build up walls to protect ourselves. In the process, we end up hurting ourselves even more though. 

The past several months have been difficult for me, especially in my ministry work. Several family members and friends both near and far know what I have been going through, but for the most part, the rest of the world does not know. It's been a season of ambiguity and not-knowing, waiting for God to see what he does next. There's been hurt and pain. There's been lack of communication and miscommunication. There's been unspoken expectations and assumptions. We often hope that the Church is a place where people can come and seek refuge from the hurts of the world. The reality though is that sometimes the people within the Church end up being the sources of hurt that we want to escape from. 

It's a process for me to go out in public nowadays. I often sit alone with my thoughts and feelings, wondering if it's worth leaving my bedroom and engaging with the rest of the world. When I do decide it's worth it, I mask myself with a facade which indicates life is all peaches and cream. I build up a wall around me so that the possibility of being hurt decreases. This is not living. I was not created to be in isolation, to be an island. This also started affecting how I interacted with the high school students as well. Although I longed to sit next students and ask them about their lives, all I did was say hello, shake their hand, and leave it at that. I was afraid of the grief that has already begun of leaving the students that I dearly love and care for. I did not want my heart to hurt more than it already has been hurting. I allowed bitterness from my circumstances to dictate how I interact with my students. 

This past week I was preparing a message on how God calls us as Christian to have attitudes of humility and forgiveness. One of the points that came out of studying was that the presence of leaders is essential to example this attitude to the rest of the church. In that moment, God convicted my heart as I realized I had not been exampling an attitude of humility and forgiveness to my students. I had distanced myself from my students because of my pride and inability to let go of bitterness. I had allowed the current state of relationships with other people in the Church to affect my relationships with the students. As I sat in this realization, I heard God tell me to forgive myself, to forgive those who have hurt me, and to ask my students for forgiveness. 

Now, self-disclosure can be a powerful tool in a message/sermon if implemented well (just like in counseling). There's a balance of sharing too much and sharing too little though. Self-disclosure is also just a scary thing, especially when you're the shepherd of a ministry and your self-disclosure is saying that you haven't been shepherding well. Nevertheless, I took the risk yesterday and unmasked myself and tore down my walls for the first time in several months...and (I think) it went well. I asked for forgiveness for not being an example to them and gave my promise to be fully present with them going forward. They were more forgiving than I expected. My students are a blessing to me, and I'm grateful for them in this season of transition. 

I wish I can say that everything is better after yesterday. Although I have forgiven myself and forgiven those who hurt me, I am still human. I am still in the process of becoming. I am still marred by residual thoughts and emotions from the events of the past several months. I still feel anger. I still feel sadness. Above all things though, I still feel love and compassion. As God takes me deeper into new and mysterious places, I cling to him knowing that he is a doing a new thing in my life--even though I yet to perceive it.