One of my most fun times of the year comes in the month of October. Not only do I love the pumpkins, and cornstalks, and the crisp fall air, but I love the parties that are associated with fall harvest, trunk-or-treating, trick-or-treating, or whatever else you want to call it.

As I kid, I can remember loving to dress up in a costume, put on a mask, and go try to fool all of my relatives and neighbors. I always thought I got them good, and sometimes I probably did! Some of my costumes were pretty awesome if I do say so myself!

This fun tradition has carried on into my adult years, and I still love putting on a costume and a funny (or sometimes scary) mask and trying to fool people. I used to spend hours planning who I would be when I disguised myself and when and where I would appear in order to trick my kids when they were little. Oh, how much fun that was!!!!

One night I can remember dressing in a black top coat, dark gray scarf, work boots, ragged jeans, work gloves, an old farmer’s hat, and a crazy wig. The final touch was the mask. Ahhh…it was a killer of a good one! Mean and nasty looking! Frightful! I looked in the mirror and about came out of my own skin. I looked nasty!

My heart was thumping faster and faster as I sat on the chair in Steph and Alex’s bedroom in the dark waiting for them to come to their bedroom. I wasn’t going to say anything. The plan was to sit on that chair in the dark, and then have them discover me when they turned on the bedroom light. (I know….I have a warped sense of humor, but it only happens once a year!)

I could hear their steps coming closer to the bedroom. I sat in the chair good and straight hardly breathing. They were chatting girl talk as they opened the bedroom door and turned on the light! WOW!!!!!!!!!! I have never heard such screams in all of my life! HELP! PLEASE, HELP! SOMEBODY’S IN MY BEDROOM!!!! SOME STRANGER IS IN MY ROOM!!!

Now, do you want to know their real reaction? They turned on the light, took a slight step back, stared real good, then said, “Real funny, Mom. We knew it was you sitting there. Nobody else would be that dumb. You didn’t scare us one little bit. And, take off that mask while you’re at it.”

All of that work for nothing. I tried to disguise myself real good, and they still knew it was me! Isn’t that how it is in real life, though? We put on masks of all kinds. We put on our “church mask”, our “everything’s fine mask”, our “happy, smiley face mask”. You know what I’m talking about. We pretend. We hide behind the masks and act like we’re somebody different. We think we’re fooling others, when in fact, we’re not even fooling ourseves. We know our hurts, pains, and struggles. We know our temptations, anger, and jealousy. We can’t hide things like that behind a silly, old mask!

What’s all this mean? No matter how hard we try to hide who we are behind a mask, we’re going to be found out, so we might as well be ourselves right from the start — dimples, pimples, simples, and all! If God loves us just as we are, then why should we try to be anything but who we are? We’re a work in progress, and there’s not a mask that can be made that can hide the heart and soul of a person! If we’re good enough for God, then we’re good enough!

Love,

Clara

PS The fright night didn’t work on my girls, but the boys……they never made it to the bathroom! Oh, was that fun!