The Brave Face

#142

Friend,

I see the brave face that you are wearing.

Oh, don’t worry, most people didn’t notice you were masking your pain, your hurt, your grief, your disappointment. It’s hard to notice someone else’s face when you are looking at your phone. You wore the brave face well, and, trust me, I almost missed it too, but I paused just long enough to see it, and my heart hurt for you.

I’ve put on the brave face before. We all need to wear our brave face from time to time. No matter what happens to us, time keeps moving. We want it to stop, but grass keeps growing, cars need gas, and children, well, children need just about everything. The trouble with the brave face is that it doesn’t allow healing to the tender and vulnerable face underneath it.

It’s like putting on a bandaid. The bandaid is great to help stop the blood from getting on other people, but if you leave the bandaid on too long, then you are blocking the body from the natural healing that air provides and limits how a protective scab can form. You need to expose your wound, so that it can heal.

The same thing is true for you. Your brave face is needed to function, but your bare face is needed to heal. Your bare face needs to be seen by someone and by yourself so that the natural process of healing and health can occur.

The most courageous thing I’ve ever seen someone do is take off their brave face and expose their bare face.

You might say the bare face is actually the bravest face of them all.

Love,

Aaron