The Costumes We Wear
By: Jasmine Wilson
Fall has nestled in, and you have probably begun to see several things that mark the fall season - the start of school, colorful trees, pumpkins, brisk air, cinnamon-scented candles, and apple-picking. Then there is the popping-up of Halloween decorations and soon it will be time for a night of trick-or-treating.
Regardless of where you stand on Halloween, we can find some amount of fun in a costume. For a short time, we can hide the real us and present someone or something quite different for a while. The problem would be if we viewed the costumes we were wearing as truth and acted as if our costume is who we are in reality. No one would be ok with our doctor being our five-year-old neighbor in a doctor costume.
In a manner of speaking though, this is what we so often do with the life-costumes we wear. Some of you are college students, some spend your days at a computer in an office somewhere or a retail store, some stay at home with kids. College student, administrative assistant, cashier, stay-at-home-mom, these are roles we play, a type of costume we wear for a time/season. There are a myriad of costumes at our reach in life. Sometimes we have more than one costume or trade one out for another. Life changes and moves us through different seasons, and they likely come with different costumes.
One fall season two years ago, I found myself going through another life-change and not liking it. I have gone through many changes and each time I struggle. When I went from serving Jesus on the mission field, to living in America and working in a school with a much less spiritual role, I faltered. When I found myself at home, married, and a mother instead of working and feeling I had purpose and contributed to society, I faltered. When I sent my kids to public school after homeschooling them for so many years and felt like a failure, I faltered. The cause of my inward battle is always this: whichever season I am moving out of seems, to me, to be the right thing to do in order to honor Jesus best, and I had allowed the thing I was doing to give me worth and define my existence. So, there I was, in another season. This particular fall, my youngest child started kindergarten and I went to work full-time instead of staying at home full-time while serving my family, and I was faltering. Along with the change in weather, my life was entering a new season again. The old one was gone and I remained, grappling with thoughts of failure, lost sense of purpose, and grief over the loss of what was.
I was genuinely shocked at how much this change affected me and equally as aggravated to realize the error of my heart, yet again. I had no idea that I had held so tightly to one aspect of who I am for my strength, until it was ripped from my tight grip, and I was left floundering to find a solid footing. What I had been standing on, which really was just a title for the way I spent the hours in my day, was temporary and not meant to sustain me. It should never have been given such a place of power to begin with.
My mindset, so often, is this: “If I am the good wife, the mom with well-behaved kids, the hardest worker, the pretty one, the organized woman, the clean house one, the happy lady, (or insert any title that you have cooked up to be your standard)… then, and only then, am I who I am supposed to be in Jesus”. This is tremendously false, yet I so often walk around as if it is true. As I was driving to work one day and passing the reminders of fall and Halloween, the Holy Spirit was helping my mind work through what is true and what was not. It suddenly became clear that I was viewing my change as something to lament, and I should be viewing it as a mere costume change.
You see, our costume may be whatever we, or even the world, gives us. However, our true identity is that of a Saint, bought by the blood of Jesus. Isaiah puts it this way when he foretells what Jesus will do, and now has accomplished for those who belong to him:
“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.” (Isaiah 61:10)
Don’t miss this: Jesus has clothed us with garments of salvation and covered us with the robe of righteousness. And further, bless the Lord, for He has redeemed our lives from the pit, as Psalm 103:4 says, and “crowned [us] with steadfast love and mercy”. So now we have a crown too! Why, then, do we settle for less? No doubt, each costume or role has purpose, they are not meaningless. They are the good work given to us (Ephesians 2:10), so let’s walk in it! But let’s not be weighed down by it or elevate it to a place in our heart that it should not take. We have a robe of righteousness, one that covers over the imperfections of our day-to-day “costumes” and lasts through every season. Our lasting wardrobe, and the one that overcomes all the others, is a garment of salvation, robe of righteousness, and a crown of steadfast love and mercy. So, let’s walk on in truth and navigate life’s costume changes with ease and grace.
