Stiff Upper Lip

Sometimes the mask is just hard to maintain. It's hard to pretend like everything is okay when you want to cry your eyes out. It's hard to look at the world and smile when on the inside you are a writhing mess. You want to cry out to the world the pain that you feel inside only to know that they either won't care or will turn a deaf ear. Sometimes these moments last for hours and sometimes for days. Sometimes the silence of your own pain is as deafening as a concert at Summerfest. Either way, it is hard to be at home feeling the hurt and the rejection and then walk outside and smile to the rest of the world acting as if there is nothing to care about. It's hard to have the anxiety of a dreaded upcoming moment masked by the proper way to behave in public, that is, act like nothing is the matter. Wouldn't it be easier if we could just fall apart sometimes and let people know how we really feel without the bumpers of society? That sort of raw emotion is especially hard to process when it is a mix of anxiety and anger.

However, as Christians, it is important that we do just that. It is important that we bumper our raw emotions because we don't know how others might take it. In helping rid ourselves of hurt we don't want to hurt others. That is sin. It's not that simple, though, and often we fail. There are times that our emotional outbursts do hurt others and in our expression of raw emotions, we don't always say what we mean. In those times, it is Jesus' forgiveness that covers our failures, our sins. We ask the forgiveness of Christ and others in those moments and work to do better next time.

I haven't had one of those moments recently, but I fear that I will tomorrow. Pray for me that I keep myself in check but also do what needs to be done.