Into the fire swamp!
How many days a year do you dress up?
Halloween is usually one of those days for us, and it’s kind of the best. I’m not one for ghouls or hockey masks and chainsaws, but I’m all in on the costumes that get me a good laugh.
Chance, Rachel and I are going as “Princess Bride” characters - with Chance being an R.O.U.S. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, do yourself a favor and find out. ;)
Dressing up is a blast - especially on days like Halloween. You get to assume someone or something else’s life for a time - enter into their story and see how it feels while your real life sort of gets put on pause. When you assume the role of a princess-saving pirate who’s busy fighting off giant rats in a fire swamp, that’s a pretty fun time.
How many days a year do you dress up?
The magic of Halloween is that it’s for a time. It’s pretty well understood by all involved that you aren’t actually a sumo wrestler, but that you’re just dressing and acting like one for a few hours (which is something every person should experience at least once).
The problem with dressing up is that it can seep beyond the bounds of our well understood days and hours, and into what we think of as our “real lives.” We put on “costumes,” and not because we think it’s fun, but because we’re afraid that if we don’t act or look a certain way we won’t be accepted or loved. People’s understanding of who “you” are and the costume you wear begins to blend together. Your real life isn’t paused, by the way. It’s still there, being formed (or deformed) by being kept in the dark.
Sometimes the most scary costumes are the ones we wear on any day other than Halloween.
The costumes we wear on any other day are the ones we put on to cover over the shame of a past mistake, an expectation not lived up to, the dull ache of believing you’re not good enough. These costumes are the scariest because of how they reinforce the whisper of our enemy, who tells us we’re defined by our past mistakes - how our value is determined by others’ expectations - and that we are not and never will be good enough.
Enter truth:
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” -Ephesians 2:8-10
You don’t have to dress up. You can live your real life. You can be confident that there is no way of acting or dressing that earns you more acceptance and love than you have right now.
Your mistakes have been dealt with and will even be fully redeemed. Your value is not determined by others’ expectations, but by Jesus’ sacrifice. In Christ’s becoming your sin, you have become righteousness of God. .
Take off the costume. Take up the gift.
Make Halloween the only day you dress up this year.