Category: Guest posts

The spotlight

‘Authenticity involves transparency, which only happens through vulnerability.’ That is a quote from fellow author Jen Baker, who I am delighted to welcome onto the Unmasked: stories of authenticity blog series today.

As a child, I rarely left the bedroom without my (metaphorical) mask securely affixed to my face. Acting as the lead character in my own performance, I could switch between timidity and boldness at a moment’s notice – my personality dependent on the atmosphere of the others present. Terrified of being known, wearing a mask was the only way I knew to interact with the world around me.

The road to authenticity in my life took many turns, several detours and more than one ‘about face’ – thankfully stepping away from the path of self-destruction before I found myself tumbling over a cliff of no return.

I have a feeling some of you reading this can relate.

Perhaps you have worn a mask which said ‘I’m fine’, when in reality you were crying yourself to sleep at night.

Or a mask which declared ‘I trust the Lord’, when in reality you were self-medicating out of worry and despair.

Please don’t beat yourself up if you’ve been there (or are there) – we all have worn masks and spoken self-protective untruths at one time or another.

Yet I have learned that being fully known by the one who knows all things – is the most freeing, beautiful and empowering choice we can make in life. When we allow ourselves to be fully known in heaven, we free ourselves to live fully here on earth.

Below is an excerpt from my new book, The Power of a Promise, where I share the moment I felt the seed of purpose being planted deep within the soil of my heart. As a young person living in a world of self-imposed hypocrisy, it remains one of the most transparent – and honest – moments of my life.

It was a moment I’ll never forget.

Before I continue, it is important to mention that while growing up (and until my late thirties) I battled intense insecurity and fear – I mean, intense. Hiding behind my mother, refusing to hold eye contact, face turning bright red when anyone spoke to me, terrified to speak in class and always believing that I was being laughed at behind my back. I lived in a continual state of shame, fear and anxiety. It improved slightly after I became a Christian, but in reality I learned to cope with it, work around it or – most often – put a mask over it.

Despite my debilitating insecurity, I loved the stage. When I stepped onto a platform I came alive, because I could be anyone except Jen Baker – which was the greatest desire of my heart for the first twenty-five years of my life. This particular evening we were rehearsing our high-school play The Mousetrap, in which I had the lead female role. It was late, the school had closed hours before, and nearly everyone except the janitor had left the building. I had stayed behind to practise some lines, and that is when it happened.

The director stepped out of the auditorium, and I was preparing to leave when I glanced up to see a small circular spotlight at centre stage. It was just wide enough for one person to be seen. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Looking around to make sure nobody else was watching, I put my things down and rushed to the platform. I carefully, methodically, made my way to the centre of that light where I stood – just me, the spotlight and my imagined audience.

Time stood still. I wasn’t yet a Christian, but I felt something divine over that moment, to the point where I literally could not move. I looked out to the ‘audience’, took command of the atmosphere…and I decided right then and there: this was my destiny.

The seed took root.

Let me say again: We can only fully live our purpose when we freely know our creator. Over the ensuing years, as my relationship with my Saviour deepened, the masks slowly came down and my purpose gradually came forth.

It says in Ephesians 2:10 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” We have been created to do good works, which God has already prepared for us. He has given us every gift we need, to carry out every plan He has. As every woman carries the seed of new life in her body, even as a little girl, so we come into the world with the seeds of our purpose simply waiting to be born.

If God were to put a spotlight on the centre of your dreams – what would He find? Where would you be standing? Remember, the Word says that God only has good gifts for us and where He leads is always toward peace and prosperity. He is a good God who is trustworthy and who always has our best future in the plans of His heart.

My prayer is that today you can believe again for the promises over your life to become alive with power, infused with purpose and unleashed in possibility.

No more hiding. No more shame. No more masks.

Instead, standing vulnerable within the security of God’s love and grace, you will step boldly into the spotlight of your future.

Jen Baker is a speaker, author and leader who loves seeing the Holy Spirit and the Word change lives and impact nations. Called from America to live in England, Jen has been a pastor, director and consultant working with the local church and several anti-trafficking charities. She has written five books, including her newly released The Power of a Promise, which can be ordered on her website at jenbaker.co.uk.

 

 

Good and messy

I am delighted to welcome American author Allison Allen to the Unmasked series today. She has written Shine: Stepping into the role you were made for, which I read recently and thoroughly recommend.

It was a hot mess. And for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why.

I am speaking about my front porch.

Every morning I opened my home’s door to find it strewn with various bits of detritus. Chunks of styrofoam. Bits of netting. Straggle-y sticks and stalks. By the end of the day said trash would disappear, which I chalked up to a good, stiff breeze.

This mystery continued for several days until, finally, it dawned upon my toddler-addled brain to look up.

And there it was – the beginnings of a nest.

A. Really. Ugly. Nest.

Precariously perched in a small corner a mama bird was hard at work building a place to have her young. Her progress was not what one might call pristine or promising. Certainly not pretty. But she did not stop, and, eventually, she made something of a topsy-turvy home in which to lay her eggs.

I wondered what would cause a bird to build upon such a small, hidden eave, when anywhere else would have taken so much less work. Our front yard is full of perfectly good trees, ready-made for nest-building. However, I also saw that our neighborhood was full of mockingbirds, those aggressive birds that will dive-bomb the head of anything human, avian, or otherwise. This robin-mama wasn’t looking for pretty or easy. She was looking for protected, sturdy, safe. She was looking for close and hidden. And she was willing to do the awkward, messy work of creating that kind of home for her chicks.

All this reminds me of Psalm 84:3, where the writer cries out:

Even the sparrow has found a home – and the swallow a nest for herself – where she may have her young. A place near your altar, Lord Almighty, my King and my God.

It strikes me that the bird (and the psalmist who wants to be like the bird) is desperate to build a nest near God’s altar. Close. Tucked in. Intimate.

And it amazes me that Psalm 84 says God welcomes the messy process of his people (like birds) bringing the bits and pieces of who they are, strewing the altar with the trash, because, well, because He’d rather have us messy and close, than pristine and far away.

Intimacy, like nest-building, is messy.

But it is so well worth the mess.

Especially when what you end up with is a nesting place nearer to God than you could have ever imagined.

I’ve never wanted to be more bird-brained in all my life.

 

Allison is a graduate of the prestigious Carnegie Mellon University and appeared in 650 performances of the Broadway production of Grease. A former Women of Faith dramatist and current Bible teacher, she speaks to women at conferences and retreats around the country, exploring themes of purpose, value and identity in original and unexpected ways.

 

Her book, Shine, Allison looks at how actors aren’t the only ones who play roles – all of us do, nearly all of the time. Using her own personal stories she calls readers to drop the brave act and step into the role we were each made for – being our true selves in Christ.

 

What I learned about distance in Christian marriage

I am delighted to welcome Tiffany Montgomery as a guest blogger today – she shares insights from when she discovered her part in creating distance in her marriage, and what God prompted her to do about it. That forms the basis of a new online course she is launching, Finding Hope and Joy in My Marriage – and there is one free place up for grabs below!

Do you remember when you were courting your husband?  (or he was courting you 😉 ).  Our romance began with long nights playing cards, drinking coffee and talking about our hopes and dreams, fears and failures of the past.  We were so close, the best of friends. What happened?  

We don’t talk like that anymore.  Distance. It came with time and hurt and life.

I don’t always tell him things and he forgets to tell me things. Now we have to have a time on the calendar to talk deeper than schedule things and kid things.  When did that happen? There was a time – in the past – when wild bulls could not have kept me from calling him to talk about the joys and sorrows of life.

As a woman I feel the pain of that distance deeply, but it never crossed my mind that he feels it too.  He put distance between us at some point – just like I put distance between him.

The man I love – who once worked day and night to make me happy – his need for respect is as real as his need for air.

When he feels disrespected, when his pride is hurt again and again, he starts putting up a wall to protect himself – from me.  I think of it as a dam – with walls that are high and wide – behind which he can hide the well springs of his heart.

My man is human – a natural mixture of good, neutral, and bad character traits – just like me.  And, just like me, he puts distance between himself and hurt.

Proverbs 21:19 says: “It is better to live in a desert land than with a contentious and vexing woman.”

This scripture describes a wife with a mouth that can maim her husband.   Can you relate to the conviction in those words?  

When I am not a safe place for my husband, he puts up a wall between us.

When I challenge him for the leadership role in our home, he builds that wall higher.

This wall grows and grows over the years until he has a built a huge dam.  Our husbands are protecting themselves from the pain of not being good enough for the most important person in their world… his wife.

When I think of it this way, my very soul is laid bare.

I created this unsafe place for him?  My words, my nagging, my putting my preferences first, my business and forgetfulness, my fear and taking the wrong side…  Have you created a similar place?

Did I really crush him so much that he can’t trust me with his heart?  I see the distance and know it is true. Can you see your husband’s lack of trust in you?  His uncertainty of how you will react to his flaws?

I just want to add a note here that the way he is responding is not all on us.  You must not take responsibility for his every mood swing. Often there is more going on in his world.  Hurts from his past create some of his behavior; wrestling with God can create some of it as well. He may struggle with insecurity or any number of other things.  I want to be sure you understand here that we are only to deal with what our attitude and actions are affecting.

Over the course of the past decade God has shown me how my words affect my husband –deeper than he lets on.  I have to look to how he responds to see the real results of years of nagging and disrespect. It took so much to heal this hurt and get my husband to let down the wall to the dam over his heart.

How did I create a Safe Place to remove the Distance in our Christian Marriage?

These I the things that I did, which I humbly suggest could help you too:

  1. Accept him – flaws and all.
    • This required a lot of forgiveness. Forgiving the past hurts.
    • It also required a lot of prayer – because some of those flaws are hard to live with.  I am now trusting God to change my husband in His time – instead of trying to change him in my time.
  2. Showing respect with my words and taking complaints and concerns to God instead of my husband.
    • Did I mention prayer?  Taking my words to God first –- letting Him be my filter – has changed the entire dynamic in our home!
    • God deals with the emotional side of what I want to say, then hubby and I can clearly communicate when there are problems.  And we can have more fun when there are not problems – because I am trusting God to handle the bigger things for me!

My Husband put distance between us because I was not a safe place for him to be real – flaws and all.  

Bit by slow bit I am trying to be a safe place for him.  To love him the way I want to be loved.

Does that fix all of our problems?   Nope.  He still hurts me sometimes and I still hurt him sometimes.  But we are accepting the humanness of ourselves and we can work through things now because neither of us expects the other to be perfect!

Are you longing for Hope and Joy in your Marriage?

God took me through a journey of re-learning how to live as a wife with a biblical worldview.  It is a joy for me to teach and mentor locally and I am thrilled to launch this new Online Course.

In this 9 week course we will dig into the Bible and find out how to restore our marriages – rebuilding them to last a lifetime!

This Marriage Course will include:

  • 10 self paced video lessons on:
    • Love
    • Forgiveness
    • Desires Vs. Preferences
    • My Mouth
    • Appreciation & Admiration
    • The Leader
    • Understanding Men
    • Respect
    • My Priorities
  • 9 weeks of personal study
    • 5 days each week that should take 10-15 minutes
  • 45 days of prayer prompts

I am excited to give away one spot on the course!

To Enter Click this Link.

 

 

Tiffany is a Kentucky Jesus Gal with a passion to encourage and equip wives and moms through practical biblical discipleship on her site HopeJoyInChrist.com. She loves to connect with other women to help grow their Christian marriages inside her growing Facebook Community. She shares: “My heart’s desire is to encourage the women – if we walk this life together we can do it better”!

Poignant poem for Mothers’ Day

Georgina (left) and her sister Bec

I read this post on Georgina’s own website and asked her whether it would be okay to include it as this week’s Unmasked: stories of authenticity blog. She is so honest, so raw and vulnerable, and I know this will speak to many for whom Mothers’ Day is bitter-sweet.

I have found Mothers’ Day hard before, trying to hold in tension my gratitude for the beautiful children I have and my sadness for the one I didn’t get to keep.  It is a day countless others find hard too.

This year feels like a whole new level of struggle is looming as I must face yet another difficult day, where my raw emotions will be dragged to the surface and shaken and beaten just a little more. It is six months since my sister passed away; Mothers’ Day without her is another hard ‘first’.  This time last year we had no idea our worlds were about to implode.  She was diagnosed a week later.  Writing this poem has helped me to face it better.  It is not a cry for pity or a judgment on those celebrating – just a pure reflection of my thoughts and emotions as I continue to walk this road of grief.  I hope it will make fellow strugglers feel less alone.

Mothers’ Day  

Last year, 
My sister took the early slot, 
Taking flowers and chocolates to Mum,
Mid afternoon,
Chatting casually 
Over coffee,
A Mothers’ Day like any other.
Her words scrawled in the card,
One of many down the years,
A relic now.
I went later,
With a now-forgotten gift,
For a glass of wine
and child-free conversation,
A luxury.

This year it’s just me.
I can never be enough,
Feel enough, write enough,
Say enough, do enough,
To plug the gaping hole now left,
One we hadn’t even seen coming then,
That ordinary Mothers’ Day last year.

Mothers’ Day looms.
I’ve survived it before,
The times it has threatened to suffocate me,
As a Mother, minus a child,
Taken too soon.
I’ve learned to live with that.

This time round I have a Mother and a child – two, in fact.
But Mothers’ Day threatens to swallow me whole in a different way,
As I face my own Mother,
With one child less and a pain 
No gift from me can dull.

And it threatens to swallow me whole 
When my niece crawls onto my lap 
Motherless,
Adapting, adjusting,
But with parts missing that will never be whole.
I cry as I imagine her,
Surrounded by classmates,
Gluing tissue paper to make-shift bouquets,
Wondering in her six-year old way 
If Mummy still sees,
Somewhere out beyond the stars.

Mothers’ Day.
I’ve learned to live with the pain
And the kick-in-the-teeth, 
It doles out, once a year,
Learned to count up the blessings as well as the cost.
Countless armies of others join me,
Teeth gritted through Facebook outpourings.
I’m not on my own.

But this year, 
Is harder than ever.
I lock my hands for the ride,
in the tightest of grips
As the Mothers’ Day rollercoaster plummets again,
Wondering if anyone will hear my screams.

How finding my authentic self transformed my writing – and my life

 

Today I welcome my good friend James Prescott to the Unmasked: stories of authenticity blog series. He is incredibly honest about his own journey, which also gives real insight into the struggle with authenticity that writers can have, especially when chasing after recognition. Thank you James for your honesty!

Authentic.

It’s a word which gets banded around a lot nowadays. Indeed, it’s been used so much that now it’s become a word associated with jargon, with anyone using it in relation to themselves, often being labelled as inauthentic.

But authenticity is needed more than ever.

LOSING INTEGRITY

As a writer, with the saturation of platform building, the urgent need for all authors to ‘brand’, and build a following, and marketing intruding into the writing world more and more, a writer I need to keep my eyes open to any lack of integrity and honesty in my work.

But there was a time when I lost my authenticity – as a writer, and as a result, as a person. And it came from this need to please, this desperation for success, for followers.

I had been writing for a while, and enjoyed blogging. I toyed with wanting more, but had never pushed for it. Then I did a writing course which challenged me to step up, be more professional, and to write an e-book, a manifesto, and make it public.

 

The promise, the guarantee which was dangled out in front of me, was lots of people subscribing to my blog, and ultimately a book contract. Given I had no followers at the time, it was beyond anything I could imagine.

And it triggered my then fragile ego, and gave it life. In time, I began to lose my soul. My writing lost focus, lost its truth. I was more focused on good graphics, comments and titles than great blog posts – and I didn’t even know what my voice really was.

I look back at that time disappointed in myself. I was more concerned with numbers, with stats, than creating great, honest work. And I’d lost myself in the process too. The whole image I was giving to the world, I knew wasn’t true. This impacted every single area of my life.

When I lost my authenticity, I almost didn’t know who I was anymore.

I was wearing a mask, not even knowing who I was underneath.

TAKING ACTION

And once good friends confirmed this to me, I had to take action. It couldn’t go on this way. So I made an ultimately life-changing decision.

I decided to stop writing publicly. For as long as it took for me to find my voice.

For as long as it took to find my integrity.

For as long as it took to find myself again.

So I wrote for myself on a private blog, every day for 15 minutes. Free-writing. No agenda, no plan, no structure, no editing. As time went on, it was something I began to look forward to. It saved me so much energy I’d used worrying about promoting work, or publishing blog posts.

Slowly, but surely, I began to notice many of these posts were all pointing to a particular direction. Similar themes were emerging. Themes around creativity, identity, calling, and being true to yourself. What it meant to be an authentic writer.

Suddenly, words were pouring out of me. I wrote about 10 ‘proper’ blog posts in a short space of time, all unpublished of course. It became the most creative, most enjoyable period I’ve had as a writer.

And I felt more alive, more myself than I’d ever felt in my life.

I felt like me again. In fact, I knew I’d connected with my true self.

RECONNECTED

When the time came to publish publicly again, I was reluctant. But I now knew I had something worthwhile to share. And I was going to share it, not for anyone else, but for me. Because it was who I was.

This material poured out into an e-book. I launched and promoted it, not expecting anything back and not even needing any major response anymore. I didn’t care. And strangely, it ended up being my most successful piece of work.

But the point of it all was – I was myself again. I’d connected with my true self. I’d taken off the mask and found who I really was.

And that’s what being authentic is all about. It’s about connecting with your truest self. Having integrity in how you live your life.

When you find that, it impacts every area of your life. Work. Faith. Relationships. Health.

So today, have the courage to take off your masks and be who you truly are. Tell the truth of your story.

From my experience, you’ll never have any cause to regret it.

James Prescott is a writer, podcaster and writing coach from Sutton, near London. He is the author of numerous books including Dance Of The Writer – The Beginners Guide To Authentic Writing, and Mosaic Of Grace. He has written for the Huffington Post and is a ‘Top Writer’ on creativity and writing on Medium, as well as hosting the weekly Poema Podcast. You can access all his work at jamesprescott.co.uk and follow him on Twitter at @JamesPrescott77

The long and winding road

I am delighted to welcome Fiona Lloyd, author of the intensely honest, moving and funny The Diary of a (Trying to be Holy) Mum to my blog. I had the pleasure of proofreading it, and can thoroughly recommend it. Here, she explains how writing has always been a part of her life – and details the journey towards becoming a published author…

I was 10 when I self-published my first book: a dozen or so of my own poems (written out in my best handwriting), with pencilled illustrations and a cover purloined from an old calendar. I was immensely proud of myself.

Fast-forward a few years into my teens, and I had titles in my head for several more books. Some even made it onto paper, although I never seemed to get much beyond the first page. As I grew up, my dreams faded: I got a sensible job (in teaching), and settled down to married life followed by – at a respectable interval – three children.

It wasn’t until I was in my mid-30s that the idea of writing began to niggle at me again. I started work on a non-fiction book, aimed at helping people to grow closer to God, but my prose was stilted and formal, and relied far too heavily on quotes from other books I had read.

Then one afternoon, while doing the school run, the phrase ‘the day it all went wrong’ drifted into my head. This triggered off all sorts of questions in my mind. Who was talking? What had happened to make it such a bad day? And what were the consequences? Gradually, the character of a flustered mum, trying to do her best (but often failing) formed in my head.

WRITING FROM EXPERIENCE

As a young mum, I frequently felt overwhelmed by the responsibility of looking after three small children (much as I loved them). It appeared as if everyone else knew exactly what to do: I thought I was the only one whose toddler had tantrums in the supermarket, and whose children who refused to eat more than one variety of vegetable. If I tried to set time aside to pray, it was pretty much guaranteed that I would be snoring 30 seconds later. Worse still, there always seemed to be plenty of people around to tell me I wasn’t doing it right.

By the time I got to child number three, I was older and maybe a little wiser. I could see that other mums often struggled with similar issues, leaving them lonely and discouraged. My book started to take shape, inspired by the things I knew that I and others had wrestled with. I hoped that if it ever got to the stage of being read by other young mums it would help them feel less isolated.

GAINING CONFIDENCE IN THE WRITING PROCESS

By now, I had plenty of ideas in my head, but lacked confidence to develop them into a full narrative. I tackled other (shorter) writing projects, with varying degrees of success. I joined the Association of Christian Writers, finding valuable advice and supportive friendships. Still – after several years – my words petered out around the 5,000 mark: I found I spent more time editing the work I’d already done than adding new material.

What eventually got things moving was my decision to take part in NaNoWriMo [National Novel Writing Month] in November 2014. I knew I was unlikely to hit their proposed target of 50,000 words in a month…but I did manage 20,000. I was delighted: I was also reinvigorated. I knew I needed a more defined story-arc, so I spent my work commutes having lengthy conversations with my protagonist, Becky, about what was going on in her life. My word count crept steadily up until August 2015, when – after much reworking and tea-drinking – my first draft was completed.

SUBMITTING MY WORK TO A PUBLISHER

One of the advantages of having spent such a long time on it was that I knew (from conversations with other writers) that several rewrites would be required before it was ready to go off to a publisher. I quite enjoy a bit of nit-picking, so I spent many happy hours deleting unnecessary or over-used words – ‘just’, ‘actually’ and ‘but’ were popular culprits. Over the next year I tweaked and re-tweaked. A few kind friends read the manuscript for me, resulting in yet more amendments. Even after I’d incorporated their suggestions, I agonised about whether I’d really got it to the point where it was ready for submission.

This raised another issue: where to send it? I’d written a clearly Christian work of fiction – because I wanted to encourage Christian mums – only to discover that there are very few publishers taking on such books nowadays. I wondered about going down the self-publishing route – and I have friends who’ve done this very successfully – but I wasn’t sure I felt able to take on such a huge task.

It was through a writing friend that I found out about Instant Apostle, a small – but growing – Christian publishing company. At the time, they’d just taken on a second novel from her, and she knew that they were looking to publish some more overtly Christian books. I did some last-minute fine-tuning, dithered for a few weeks, prayed like mad, and finally sent off my first three chapters plus synopsis to Instant Apostle.

BEING ENCOURAGED

A few weeks later, an email pinged into my in-box: they liked what they’d seen – could I send the rest of the manuscript? Could I? Could I?? I’d pressed ‘send’ almost before I’d finished reading the email. This time, the wait was much shorter. On 17 May 2017, I received a phone call: Instant Apostle wanted to publish my book! I’ve been very pleased with the support they’ve given me, and I think the finished product – now entitled The Diary of a (Trying to be Holy) Mum – looks amazing. I’m trying to keep both feet on the floor, and my prayer is still very much that young mums (and others) will be encouraged by it.

So, I’ll leave the closing thoughts to another friend who has just read the book.

‘It’s so reassuring,’ she told me, ‘to know that I’m not the only one who struggles.’

I can’t ask for more than that.

Fiona Lloyd is vice-chair of the Association of Christian Writers, and is married with three grown-up children. Her first novel, The Diary of a (trying to be holy) Mum, is being published by Instant Apostle on 18 January 2018. Fiona has also had short stories published in Woman Alive and Writers’ News, and has written articles for Christian Writer and Together Magazine. Fiona works part-time as a music teacher, and is a member of the worship-leading team at her local church. You can find her on Twitter: @FionaJLloyd & @FionaLloyd16

 

Mask-wearing, role-playing and being myself

Today I welcome Peter Martin to the Unmasked: stories of authenticity blog series. He talks candidly about how, when he first started working, he tried to copy those he admired, and also about when it is and isn’t appropriate to wear a mask…

When I fell off the conveyor belt that is education I graduated with a degree in Youth and Community work but at the age of 23 had little life experience to complement it. I found myself quickly in a part-time role where I was in front of groups of young people leading group work programmes focusing on personal development. It was sink or swim time!

As a graduate I weaved together all my experiences of role models and taught myself to mimic them. I remember thinking of Mr Farrell in our church who when he felt the need to issue a command spoke like he was about to go through you. Yet he was popular with us as everyone knew the boundaries and knew he was in charge. It was no surprise then that when I started to work within a juvenile detention centre in Dublin I would occasionally ask myself: ‘what would Mr Farrell do’? As I got my answer I would put a mask on, role-play, and, much to my surprise, it worked!

Fast forward a few years and a few different posts and I found myself in management. As I sat at the board table was the real me the upper half of my body that spoke with authority and fairness or was it my lower half that trembled?

I currently hold the post of youth and children’s coordinator for a local church. I am now frequently before our youth and children and I’m funny, loud, energetic, warm and often mischievous. However as someone who suffers from chronic fatigue and who is no stranger to anxiety am I being me, have I been authentic or am I just wearing a mask?

The answer is I am being both, as opposed to either-or. Sometimes it’s appropriate to wear a mask and sometimes it isn’t. The important thing is to know who you are. To know when you should wear a mask and when you shouldn’t. Be aware that these are traitorous waters full of the dangerous temptations of believing your own hype.

 TRYING TO COPY SOMEONE ELSE

One of my heroes can be found in the Youth For Christ (YFC) institution that is John Duncan (JD) an old colleague of mine. This man has held local, national and international posts and exceled at them all. He has energy to burn and vision and creativity to give away by the truck load.

In the early days of our working relationship as we grafted shoulder to shoulder I tried to copy his persona and to keep up with his unbelievable pace. This was a BIG mistake as I quickly wore out and the grumpy dog in me that surfaces when tired all too often came to the surface. Worse than that, Youth For Christ didn’t need a second JD!

As it turned out what they needed was someone to come behind the visionary and after the dust settled to gently put in place a plan to achieve the vision. The relief I felt as I dropped the duplicate JD mask, and found my own role, was incredible. I was startled to realise that what YFC needed and why the Lord wanted me in this post was to be me, not him.

NOT ALWAYS A BLACK AND WHITE ISSUE

Experience teaches me that there are times when wearing a mask is a necessity and there are times when it is clearly not and can even be dangerous. I guess as with many things in life the main question is around why you would want to wear a mask.

You are called to be the best you can be and, while you do that, you are also asked to process and deal with what’s not good within you. To deliver that with an accurate self-awareness is real authenticity and should be nurtured.

 

Peter Martin lives on the Ards peninsula of County Down, Northern Ireland. He is married with two dogs – Cuba, a big friendly German Shepherd, and Lola, a busy Border Terrier who thinks she runs the house – and may just be right! Peter has his own blog, which can be found at www.mcfinkle.com

Embracing the broken

I am delighted to welcome Liz Carter to my blog, as she continues the ‘Unmasked: stories of authenticity’ series. This will be the last post before I take a little break for the holidays – but will be continuing with this series in the New Year. Liz is incredibly honest here and I resonated with a  lot of what she shared, including the pressure felt as a pastor’s wife and also feeling the need to learn to lament well…

‘How do you feel now?’

I stand there, my head bowed, my body stiff as I contain the pain raging inside. What do I say?

‘Are you feeling better?’

I bite down on my lip. ‘A little, yes, thank you.’

But inside I am berating myself. That’s not true, is it? I don’t feel a little better at all. If anything, I feel worse, the pain made somehow more obvious by the prayer. I feel just that bit smaller, that bit more invisible, the real me hiding behind the reality that once again, I am not healed. Once again, I have let somebody down, someone who wanted to pray with me, to see me set free from the pain which holds me in fierce bonds.

You see, this is my mask. This is the face I put on. It’s the face I have put on all my life, growing up with a degenerative lung disease. And it’s the face I sometimes put on with God, too.

It’s the ‘I’m fine’ face. It’s the words I say when folk ask me if I am better yet, the smile I smile when people tell me I look so well. It’s the false mask of pretence; a way to escape being too real, because sometimes it’s just too hard. Too exhausting to reveal my inner self with all its pain and loneliness, enclosed in a body which keeps me caged from the world for so much of the time. So instead of sharing my unmasked self, I nod. I smile. I’m fine, thank you.

Somewhere along the way, I learned to hide my feelings. Growing up with this disease meant that I had to put a mask on every day, to face the world, to be a person who deserved a place in the world. If I took my mask off, I thought I was showing that I wasn’t good enough, after all. That I was too weak and helpless. Too pathetic to be of use, because my body always let me down. The easiest way was to hide the fact that I was in pain. To pretend that all was well.

I started doing this in church, as well. I thought that people didn’t want to hear that I had another infection or felt too exhausted to go out of my house or that pleurisy was racking me yet again. I thought that I wasn’t displaying God’s power at work in my life if I was sick. I thought people wanted to hear bright and positive stuff.

But I was wrong.

People long to see authenticity

They yearn to see people being more honest, more open about their struggles. And when I share what I am really feeling, how I am struggling, then that brings me to a better place, as well. A place where I don’t have to pretend, anymore, a place where I don’t have to be lonely in my pain, because others have taken some of it and held it along with me.

Unmasking is scary. It’s risky. It doesn’t always go down so well, either. There have been the times I’ve tried to be more real with folk and they haven’t wanted to know. The shutters have come down, the glances over my shoulder more marked, the barriers erected. The platitudes start: ‘I’m sure you’ll be better soon.’ ‘You just need a bit of fresh air/exercise/aloe vera.’ Some people don’t want to be faced with the reality of my pain.

But there are actually far fewer of these people than I once told myself. Once upon a time, I felt I could only be open with my closest friends and family. Now, I’ve found that saying how I really feel can open conversations in the most wonderful way. I was talking to a lovely lady the other day – I don’t know her very well, so was all ready to say ‘fine, thanks,’ when the question came. But I caught myself, and told her that I was feeling fairly broken, actually, and that this year had been really bad for me, with multiple infections and a hospital admission. Instead of the conversation continuing on the superficial level it had started with, it got deep quickly, because this lady was released to speak about stuff going on for her, too. My decision to be real meant a much more profound connection. A healing conversation.

The perfect parson’s wife

I’m especially aware of this as a vicar’s wife. Perhaps there’s a script running somewhere in my mind telling me what a vicar’s wife should look like and act like, something which says that a vicar’s wife is always impeccably presented, and coolly calm and confident. I couldn’t possibly show folk who I really am, because that wouldn’t be appropriate.

I know that script is really a load of rubbish. It’s an archaic leftover of old novels I’ve read featuring distant and collected parson’s wives (we’re talking Austen and Bronte here.) It’s nothing like the reality of living life with honesty and integrity – which leads to messiness.

But messy is good. Messy is important, and real. Standing in coffee time after church with tears running down my cheeks means an unmasking which gives others permission to give of themselves, too. It means a sharing of lives marred with brokenness, an honesty about suffering which still crushes us, an authenticity about those times we just don’t get it.

Because a life lived with God does not mean a life lived without pain. And if we can learn to be honest about the pain then we can reach out to each other so much more. We can listen to one another and make the world a less lonely place, even if for only a moment or two. We can reach out and catch hold of the work of the Spirit among us as God brings healing through our willingness to open ourselves up. Even when it hurts.

We’re allowed to shout at God

I’ve had to go through a journey of being real with God, as well as with others. I got too good at pretending that everything was fine. That I didn’t mind when others were healed and I wasn’t, that I was good with it, that it was okay because I wanted those people to be happy. I told God that I was fine with my sick body if that was who I was supposed to be. I plastered a grin on my face and carried on.

Some of this was authentic. I found joy in worship, and felt that I had come to a place of acceptance of where I was. I’d lived with it forever, after all, so had known no other way, so perhaps it was easier for me than for others who suddenly get sick or become disabled. God was so much more than my feelings, and I found that I could take hold of contentment in God’s presence rather than in my circumstances.

But in all of this, I forgot to actually acknowledge my feelings.

I forgot that it is important to tell God how we feel.

I forgot about lament.

The Bible is an incredible model of how to be authentic. Right through all the books, we see broken people responding to God from out of their brokenness. We see people shouting at God, moaning, weeping, screaming. We see people battering their fists into God’s chest.

We even see Jesus in the deepest grief, sweating drops of blood as He asks God to take this great burden away from him. We see in Jesus’ desperation the most profound authenticity, an honesty not afraid to express His fears and His pain, while always saying Yet not my will. Yet not my will, but yours be done. Jesus had no need to put on a mask before His Father, no need to say that He was fine thank you, that He was really okay with what He knew He had to do.

Because He really wasn’t okay. He was sweating blood.

In the psalms, the writers so often share their brokenness in the most raw words, ragged and haunting poetry which expresses their pain. How long, O Lord, how long?… Why, my soul, are you so downcast?… Do not hide your face from me! The writers don’t hold back from God, because they know that God can take their grief and their shame, their agony and their hatred. They give us a model for how we can be genuine in our prayers. How we can share the depths of our hearts with God, even when those depths are so very dark, because there is no darkness that cannot be lit up with God’s dazzling light. Those psalmists always move on from laying out their brokenness to trusting in God, even when things look bleak. And it’s in their active decisions to remember God’s work in their life and to praise God anyway that they find their healing, that they find their mourning turned to dancing and their lives lifted from the pit.

Their unmasking leads to their healing.

This is my experience, too. Pretending does nothing, before God and before people, because pretending leads to superficiality, and there is little point to that. Honesty – even in all its raw brutality – does so much more. It lays bare truth and its vulnerability speaks to battered hearts and crushed lives.

‘Are you feeling better, now?’ the person praying asks of me.

I begin to speak, but stop myself for a second.

‘I’m still in pain. So much pain. Why can’t God take my pain away?’

And we weep together. We weep in the waiting and in the brokenness, but our weeping is seasoned with hope, the hope we both know, the reason we keep on asking.

The hope that will never let us go.

Liz lives in Shropshire with her Rev. other half and two teens. She loves writing more than most other things and blogs here. Her Bible study book about Beauty and the Beast is available here or you can get an e-copy for free on her blog. Liz’s first book is about contentment living in a broken world and will be published by IVP in 2018.

Post-natal depression unmasked

Wow. I am constantly being overwhelmed by the honesty and vulnerability shown by those who have agreed to guest blog for my Unmasked: stories of authenticity series. Today, Helen Hodgson bravely shares about the horror of experiencing postnatal depression. Having experienced it myself I resonate with the power and truth behind her words. Thank you Helen for sharing so openly. I’m sure Helen joins me in praying that her post helps anyone reading who is suffering from postnatal depression. Please know that you are not alone…

‘Can’t you just smile and put your worries to the back of your mind?’

‘Maybe you should just drag yourself out of bed and you will feel better.’

‘You just need to enjoy them while they’re young – the time flies by so fast!’

‘You’re just tired. Everything will be better when you have some sleep.’

‘Just pray more. That should do the trick.’

‘Haven’t you got enough faith?’

‘It’s a choice, surely?’

Post-natal depression is still so misunderstood and such a taboo, particularly in church circles. My unmasking involves not simply writing about my experiences, but including some photographs that now send shivers down my spine. Pictures explain more than words ever could. My memories from this time are patchy at best and raw at their worse.

Just over 16 years ago, my beautiful boy was born after a traumatic emergency Caesarean and my first words on seeing him were ‘is that mine?’ This baby was like an alien to me and I was already a disappointment. I’d wanted a water birth. Instead, I had a general anaesthetic while they tore this child from my body. I didn’t meet him until I had come round from surgery. I’d had expectations of being the kind of mother that you read about in Enid Blyton books. This wasn’t part of my plan.

No amount of antenatal classes or well-meaning advice could have prepared me for the weeks and months of utter darkness that followed.

Post-natal depression took over as irrational and scarily angry thoughts swirled through my mind. I resented the intrusion of this screaming baby who never slept. I cared for his daily needs but I didn’t feel this mythical surge of love for him I was meant to feel. I watched other new mums cooing over their babies and felt jealous. Instead of nursery rhymes, I sung songs of destruction over him and thought about how to escape. I was so very lonely. I couldn’t connect with my baby and I couldn’t connect with other new mums who seemed so in love with their little ones.

Popping to the shops became a nightmare.

‘Isn’t he just a joy!’ An older lady cooed over him

I was horrified. I couldn’t understand how someone could even feel that way.

‘No.’ I replied. ‘He’s a monster.’

She quickly moved away from me as all I could think about was how this child had ruined my life.

Some days I raged and cried. Some days I numbly got on with the tasks in hand. I knew I had already failed and he was only months old. I was never going to be the mum he needed, so what was the point in trying? Actually, he would be better off without me.

Being part of a church only intensified my feelings of isolation and guilt. Well-meaning people gave me platitudes and I stood by as other mothers seemed to do a far better job than me. I watched them smiling and laughing and wondered why I couldn’t feel any connection with my child. I didn’t know where God was. I knew that I believed He was good and that He loved me. But I was failing Him too. He’d given me this son but I wasn’t able to nurture him the way I knew I was supposed to.

Support came from my health visitor and a few friends, but cups of tea and putting on brave smiles never removed the emptiness, anger, guilt and sense of failure I felt.

It was only after a dramatic sleepless night where my anger spilled over onto my precious baby that my kind and patient husband marched me to the GP. I was prescribed anti-depressants and counselling. By that point I was so numb and so desperate that I followed like a sheep.

And slowly, slowly, over time, the days began to be less dark. I discovered I could find joy in small things again. I could sing songs of hope and faith over him. I began to fall in love with my little boy. And, instead of finding me rocking in a dark corner after his return from work, my faithful husband would see I had made the tea or hung the washing out.

I began to heal.

Post-natal depression was my illness.

It wasn’t a choice.

It wasn’t simply tiredness (although sleep deprivation certainly didn’t help).

It wasn’t difficulty adjusting.

It wasn’t a lack of faith.

It wasn’t laziness.

It wasn’t failure.

And there is hope.

My boy, now 16, stands taller than me. His grin makes my heart melt inside. He sleeps – for too long sometimes! We share ‘in jokes’ and laugh together a lot. We talk about the deep stuff. He hugs me with his long gangly arms and buys me chocolate at just the right moments. Despite my feelings of failure and regret over his first few years, our ever-growing relationship is one of joy and trust. I’m so glad to be his mum.

And that surge of love isn’t mythical anymore. It happens everyday.

Helen is Co-Founder of Hope at Home, a freelance writer and youth worker.  She’s wife to one active husband and mum to three even more active young men.  She also loves running, squelching through mud in her wellies and reading her book in front of a fire.

 

Poppy Denby: the truth-seeker

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I am delighted to welcome Fiona Veitch Smith to my blog today. Author of the fabulous Poppy Denby Investigates series, she talks here about her third book, The Death Beat, as well as fake news and the need for good journalism.

At the launch party of the new book in my Poppy Denby Investigates series I was interviewed by a former broadcast journalist from ITV. She referred to the central character of my novels – a reporter for a London newspaper in the 1920s – as a ‘truth-seeker’. I was delighted that that was how she perceived Poppy.

She then asked me if I was trying to say anything about journalism and whether or not I felt the profession had been discredited. I said that I was most definitely trying to say something and I hoped my books were a celebration of the best of journalism as a key component of a well-functioning democracy. The journalistic profession at its best is a seeker of truth, an exposer of falsehood and an upholder of justice.

THE TRUTH WILL SET US FREE

The host of this blog, Claire Musters, has just released a book called Taking Off the Mask, that challenges us to live authentic, truthful lives. That’s what the best journalism helps us as a society to do – it takes off the mask of institutional falsehood. I haven’t been living under a rock for the last couple of decades, and am well aware of the self-inflicted image-destruction journalism has undergone, from the death of Princess Diana, to the phone tapping of Millie Dowler, to the obsession with celebrity culture. However, that side of the profession has always been there – even in Poppy Denby’s day. But alongside it is, and always has been, a dogged determination to hold those in power to account, to expose corruption and to help live out the God-inspired teaching that truth will set us free. That is why I became a journalist. And that is why I have written Poppy Denby the way I have.

In the fourth book in the series, which I’m currently writing, the rival newspaper to the Daily Globe – the London Courier – is an example of the worst kind of journalism: printing false, distorted, sensational news. But Poppy and her colleagues seek to work to a higher standard. They don’t always get it right, and the question of whether the ends justify the means is always an open one, but their underlining ethos is that they will not stop until the truth is revealed.

THE FAKE NEWS ERA

So where does this leave me and my books in the age of ‘Fake News’? In planning The Death Beat, I decided Poppy and her boss Rollo would work on The New York Times long before Donald Trump became a presidential candidate and started spouting his politically charged ‘fake news’ accusations at every media outlet that didn’t present him in a good light. The ‘failing New York Times’ (in his words) has been one of his most vocal opponents. As a young journalism student I was raised on a steady diet of New York Times articles as prime examples of excellent reportage and design. So for me it was an honour to send my heroine there for three months.

Fake News does exist. It’s when people deliberately make up unverified and unsubstantiated stories and distribute them (mainly through social media) to undermine or stir up trouble. Writers of fake news are employed by shady propaganda farms, not mainstream media outlets. Although I realise too that the mainstream media is not squeaky clean, we must be careful not to tar all journalists with the same brush. Fake news is not the same as news with a political or social bias. Unfortunately the public struggles to tell the difference and now anything they don’t like or agree with is labelled and discredited as ‘fake news’. This is a very unhealthy place for us to be. The way forward from here is far bigger than this little blog post, but I hope that my books might at least help to remind people why we need journalists – even if we don’t like what they have to say.

Fiona Veitch Smith is the author of the Poppy Denby Investigates series. Book 1, The Jazz Files, was shortlisted for the CWA Endeavour Historical Dagger 2016. Book 2, The Kill Fee, was a finalist in the Forword Book Review mystery of the year, 2017, and book 3, The Death Beat is out now. Fiona has worked as both a practising journalist and as a lecturer in journalism. Found out more about her series at www.poppydenby.com