The Face of God -- Part 1

I just got a note from Frank Warren announcing the advent of the Post Secret app in September and the encouragement to share it with whomever:



For years I've sat in rooms with comfortable chairs and pillows and tissues so that people would feel some ease when they wanted to pour out the secrets that ate at their souls, and for the ones who were able to bring their secrets to light and gain the clarity to see how to remove the power of the secrets, it's been encouraging. Yet all of this was done while they knew I was in the room with them and more significantly, that they knew we would later run into each other on the street or at the post office, or in the grocery store.

Enter Frank who for six years has placed himself in the room but in a way that allows people to save face -- literally. He started the PostSecret Project in 2005 as an outlet for those who needed to give vent to something or to share a joy (those are few and far between). People may mail him a postcard decorated any way they like, and every Sunday 20 of the cards are posted on the PostSecret blog. Considering the 1,000+ postcards a week that Frank receives, it seems there is a great need for people to bare their souls, and the desire to do this is growing.

Much of it is the need to be absolved, and all of it is the need to be understood. There is almost no greater hell than to go through life misunderstood and feeling condemned and PostSecret gives people the ability to achieve some sort of clarity and absolution if only to know someone else is thinking about their secret. It makes sense when I consider that I've yet to meet but a very small group of people who do not feel this need, and of that minority, they are usually anti-social. Some believe we have created God in various forms to deal with the need. I've wondered a time or two (oh, heck a lot more than a time or two) if some of those people pouring their hearts out in front of me didn't do it just to have me serve as a temporary god for them.

Free indeed

I tend toward snarky, and I've justified its frequent use by mentally trotting out the Apostle Paul's sarcasm to the Galatians or the Corinthians or even the Lord Himself laying it on Job. But the truth is that I don't feel snarky at all when I think of what the Lord has done in my life.

I come from a long line of people who have battled mental illness to the point that several have been institutionalized and a few have committed suicide or tried to. But hey, our family has developed a pretty good sense of humor about these things. Where do you think the snark came from? At get togethers we've made jokes about our family crest being a couple of guys wearing straight jackets or wondering if Uncle Ray* was still alive 'cause no one has seen him outside his house for 15 years or being amused that Aunt Sheila*, a nurse, was doing pretty good these days 'cause she only had Munchausen and not, thank God, by proxy.

And all of this was a regular laugh riot until one day a year or so after I became a parent, my husband asked me, "Have you ever been happy?" To which I replied, "Yes," and he wasn't satisfied with that answer. "When was that? And how long do you think that lasted?" I actually had to think about it. "The day our daughter was born, and it lasted about an hour or two."

Oh, I knew I wasn't Miss Sanguine and frankly, I was proud of that. I cloaked myself in pensiveness as a way of giving great meaning to being so darn serious all the time. But serious all the time is boring -- not just to everyone around me but to me as well. It's one thing to bore others; it's another to bore yourself. So it was only natural that I developed a sense of humor with an edge as I was learning to deal with the world.

Surely, laughter is great medicine, but only to a point. Thankfully, the Lord has shown me another way, and my husband was instrumental in making me realize what I was missing. I've now had many days of happiness and more importantly am understanding the nature of joy. The Lord has shown me what it means to be joyful beyond explanation. Uh, I would explain it, but, oh never mind. :D Suffice to say that John 8:32 is dead on. I know first hand that's real. Thank you, Lord! So I just don't want to laugh out of contempt. I want to remember the grace I have and continually realize I'm overflowing with enough to go 'round. Thankfully, the Lord is in me, and He doesn't let me forget -- hence this post.

Oh, I may veer off at times and say something I think is funny but in reality is spiteful. Ultimately the Lord will keep me from that bondage. May He always keep me from being full of myself so that I don't become the thing I despise -- cute meanness. Oh, please keep me from cute meanness masquerading as cleverness. Let me remember there's no life in it beyond a few moments, and all that remains is the sour after-taste of self-righteousness.

* Heck yeah the names were changed.