Drop the Costume

We can’t stop Halloween from happening on this day each year, but we can find creative, kind ways to bring the light of Jesus and the love of God into a day where horror, death, and evil are celebrated. (If that sounds like an over-reaction, see my recent post: Don’t Normalize Halloween.)

One helpful practice is to let this day of costumes remind us of how we tend to cloak our true selves throughout the year. Sometimes out of shame. Sometimes to gain the approval of others. Either way, we hide because we fear we are less than—or wish we were more than—we are. 

Frederick Buechner says it well: "The original, shimmering self gets buried so deep that most of us end up hardly living out of it at all. Instead we live out all the other selves, which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world's weather." 

True, we're not all we will be. We’re in the process of becoming. But God sees us as he made us and our deepest identity is secure: we are the son or daughter of a really good Father. So let’s drop the costume and rest in who God created us to be…today and every day.

This reading was crafted to encourage your pursuit of story and creativity with God. Your donation makes this crowd-funded initiative possible. You can support it via PAYPAL (or by check to Allen Arnold at PO Box 62841, Colorado Springs, CO 80962).

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