In every part of the world, almost everyone is experiencing different weather conditions, different economic trends and different available opportunities, but we’ve noticed that one thing is constant no matter where in the world you may be located and that constant is Pain. The pain we are talking about is sickness, disease, heartache, disappointment, loss, setbacks, failure, lack of sufficient funds, divorce, death, etc. and the list could go on and on. If you’re anything like us at some point and time you have found yourself having to face some kind of pain, whether you have wanted to or not. If you’re anything like us, you’ve been faced with difficult choices and wondered just how in the world you were going to make it through. Can you relate to pain? Have you ever experienced pain or are you going through painful situations now? If you have not been the victim of pain’s terrible clutches, if you live long enough at some point and time you will experience it rearing it’s ugly head. But pain doesn’t have to be such a nasty uninvited guest in your life, when you surrender your pain continually to God. When you surrender you pain continually to God, He can take and use that pain to create something new, wonderful and beautiful in your life. Pain doesn’t have to have the last laugh or the last word in your life when you submit it to God.

You see, dealing with constant pain will cause you to have to wear a mask day in and day out just to get through life and just to be able to go on. Have you ever met someone and they asked you how you were doing, and you replied and told them that you were doing fine, when in all actuality, you were hurting inside, when in fact, the night before you may have cried yourself to sleep, you may have been feeling stressed out and you may have felt that you were almost ready to hurt someone because you were so tired of your problems. You could have also been feeling dead inside because your problems may have drained everything out of you, so instead of telling the person you met how you really felt, you may have done the most polite thing so you replied and said you were “fine”. Do you know what we mean?

 If having to wear a mask to hide your problems describes you, be encouraged in knowing that God doesn’t want you to have to walk around day in and day out wearing a mask to hide your problems. God doesn’t want you feeling like you’re so overloaded by the stress and strain that life causes until you’re feeling that you are about to “break, snap, or go postal”. He does has a plan for you to solve your problems. Sometimes the problems in your life may be intensely difficult for God to bring about rapid solutions due to the complex nature of what’s all involved for God to “fix” your problems. So although it may seem like you’re staying in your pain forever, in essence, you’re really not, you’re only staying in your painful situation until God is able to bring about the right outcomes that He desires in your situations based upon what is best for you! So So sometimes the pain in your life is actually a sign from God that your life is under “construction”, so instead of feeling like you may have to wear a mask to hide your problems and allowing that pain to defeat you and alter your moods, God wants you to understand that where you are is not where you are going to stay. He is working, you are going to get your bounce back, you are going to be happy again, God will work things out for you, you just have to trust Him, be patient and stay in faith and wait on Him. So next time some one asks you how you’re doing, God wants you to reply with faith by saying something like “I am blessed and Highly favored because I know that all things work together for the good of those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose” and since that’s me, I am waiting with expectancy for Him to perform the extraordinary for me in my life! And when you say this, God doesn’t want this to be an act, He wants you to actually mean what you say because you “actually believe it”.

 In closing, also understand that sometimes God may have to take your life apart, just to be able to put it back together again so that next time it will be stronger and better! Your problems in life that have caused you pain or are causing you pain are actually turning points, that draws you closer to God. Let God use those turning point to change any mask that you may feel that you have to wear daily just to get through life! You pain does have some benefits, while you are going through your pain, God is able to work with you to grow you and develop you into who He created you to be, He is able to spend more time with you to get to know you, and you are able to spend more time with Him to get to know Him. It is in this way that you are able to become mature and it is in this way that you are able to deepen your relationship with Him as He works in and through your your painful situations. And when God brings you out of your pain, you can use your painful story as a testimony to inspire some one else who is going through it and they may feel like they have to wear a mask. You can encourage them as we’ve encouraged you to dare to believe God when it seems that all hope is gone!

 If this message resonated with you in any way, we’d like to invite you to join us in this simple prayer for God’s help to deal with any mask that your problems may have forced you to have to wear trusting that He can and will help you change your mask;

 Dear God,

Thank you for this timely message and helping me to see that the outer mask that I wear doesn’t deserve the power that it holds over me. I do not want to continue to allow my mask to alter and change my moods and my relationship with you and others, I hereby submit my mask to you Father on your Holy Altar and ask you to accept it as my gift to you. Take it, change it and transform it and me on the inside so that I can be released from the emotional bondage that wearing a mask causes. Forgive me father for allowing such a stronghold to exist in my mind and my emotions, and I also invite Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior to break the chains of wearing a mask and I ask for His help and assistance in restoring me to a right mind that is full of hope, love and expectancy that comes only from you Father, in Jesus name I ask and pray – Amen