Among Friends

     In one of my favorite movies, "The Princess Bride", Westley is asked why he is wearing a mask.  He replies, "They're terribly comfortable.  I think all people will be wearing them in the future."  Westley was right.  They are terribly comfortable and most of us are wearing them.  I didn't realize how tight my mask had grown to my face until I went to the "Among Friends" women's conference last weekend.  When I came home from the Friday night session, my husband asked me what it was about.  Being real, was my reply.  "Oh", he said "You don't like being real".
     I call my mask Competent Connie and it is a good one.  I probably started making it when my mother's mental illness caused me to take over some of her roles in our family.  I was the child described as "mature for my age".  By adulthood my mask was so perfected that when I was finally broken enough to be placed in a psychiatric hospital, the staff thought I was there for a job interview.  It has become so much a part of my nature I have almost forgotten it is a mask.  I even wear it when I pray.
     That is why I highly recommend attending the Among Friends conference to those who still have a chance.  Women are encouraged to be honest with themselves and at least one friend, to be willing to ask, and be asked, how we are doing in our spiritual life and our walk with God.  The main reason I have been a BSF junkie for 20 years is that it is structured to provide accountability to study and apply the Bible.  But I spent many years of that study as an anorexic wreck and hardly anybody knew.  I like to be honest, but honestly, I love my mask more.  I like being Competent Connie, but God has never had much use for her.  God has used me the most when I have been the most broken.
     If you've ever seen water skippers, insects who stand above the water by distributing their weight just so, I lived the first 30 years of my life as a water skipper.  Then I lost everything in the Major Depression and was forced to explore below the surface of my life.  As much as I hated being depressed, I was thankful for God allowing it.  I want more from life than to have skimmed its surface.  At the conference I realized I have gone back to being a water skipper and I am taking steps to change that--beginning here. God would rather have a real wreck than a shallow saint.