'well we all have a face that we hide away forever and we take them out and show ourselves when everyone has gone....some are satin, some are steel, some are silk, and some are leather. they're the faces of the stranger, but we love to try them on....' - billy joel

i try not to come across as the sappy, overly sentimental type. but guess what? i am. and i try, sometimes unsuccessfully, not to come across as someone who is weak inside. but guess what? i totally am. i also make attempts, however ridiculous, to deny that i'm insecure, afraid, and generally feeling stupid about myself. yeah, you guessed it. am. am. am.

i'm 27 now, and i've spent the majority of those years hiding behind facades that have now come, and are now coming, crumbling to the ground. my secret rooms inside myself have been locked down and most of my defenses are stripped away. the downside of this is that i'm scared pretty much all of the time....afraid that someone might see who i really am and torment me for it....but honestly, i'm mostly afraid of my own self-rejection....that i will continue to undermine every thought and feeling that flows out of me....and the upside of such internal maneuverings? eventual freedom, i hope. there is a girl inside me who has never known what it feels like to be okay with who she is, and there's a woman waiting there, too, who yearns to express fully all of the things that God planted inside her heart.

you'll notice that i hardly ever discuss my hopes for the future here. i can assure you that it's not because i don't have any, but instead because i'm afraid to admit that i do. somehow it seems an admission of weakness to hope and dream. but i guess that's because you're acknowledging that not everything in life is brought about by your own strength, but instead by something, or someone, else. and that leaves the door open that you might get let down....that i might get let down....that God might let me down. okay, insertion of truth here: His plans are to prosper me, to give me hope and a future....He desires to bless me beyond what i could ask or imagine.....i want so badly to live that truth out by the way that i feel on the inside....but this is easier said than done. day by day, though, i'm moving in that direction. those closed-off secret rooms have rendered me unable to live solely off of my own strength. i HAVE to trust God. He's all i have....and He's more than enough.

so i don't want to hide anymore. and every day i try to let myself emerge a bit more....and some days i run screaming back inside. but not today.

and maybe not tomorrow either.....