Underneath
Megan Breedlove 
Two nights ago, my daughter attended her friend Darby’s birthday party. The guests were invited to come in costume, and Ellie thought she might want to be a cat. My husband took her shopping for a cat costume, but when they came home, Ellie was holding a Darth Vader mask and a black cape (she’s a huge Star Wars fan). “See, mom? I’m going to be Darth Vader!” Ellie proclaimed. “And underneath, I’m going to be Princess Leia.”
My husband had pointed out to Ellie that she wouldn’t feel like wearing her mask throughout the party and suggested that she take off the cape too and have another costume underneath. So Ellie decided to go with Princess Leia.
Ellie put on a flowing white dress she has that also has a small white cape to go with it. Then I braided her long blond hair into two braids, one on each side of her head, and wound each braid into a “cinnamon roll” shape above her ears. Ellie planned on showing up to the party in her Darth Vader costume, and then, when everyone guessed that she was Darth Vader, taking off her black accessories to reveal her Princess Leia costume underneath. She wanted to surprise everyone, and that was understandable. It’s fun to dress up as your favorite characters. And if you can throw a surprise into the mix, well, that’s even better.
What’s not so good is when, in real life, we put on an appearance for others that doesn’t match the real person underneath.
Usually, we do this because we’re afraid of letting our real selves be known. We fear that if people knew the real us, they wouldn’t like us. So we hide who we really are, putting on a false front that we hope will please others, in order to gain their acceptance. We keep our innermost feelings, thoughts, and beliefs to ourselves. And what happens then is that people may like or approve of our costume, but they don’t know who we really are underneath.
It’s true that sometimes, people will reject us if we displease them. We’ve all had the experience of being rejected by someone who determined we weren’t really what he or she were looking for. We weren’t good enough. Weren’t what he or she wanted.
For those of you who have experienced such painful rejection in the past and would like to talk more about it, just contact me through my website. I’ve been there too, and I understand what it’s like to be rejected. I also want to tell you that I’m sorry it happened to you. I know it hurts, and I’m sorry.
But there’s something else I want to tell you, too, something I’ve learned from my experiences of being rejected, and that’s this: there is one Person who will never reject you. That’s God.
Despite the fact that He knows exactly what you’re like (putting on a front never works with Him; He always knows better), He loves you. He’s chosen to love you and promised to be with you always.
Hard to believe? I know. It was hard for awhile for me to believe it, too. But as I’ve learned to love and trust Him more, and learned to absorb more of His love for me, I’ve also learned just how vast and deep that love is. It’s stronger than the worst things you or I have ever done. It’s deeper than anything we’ve been or failed to be. It’s limitless and unchanging, and it’s offered to the person we really are, not somebody we pretend to be.
With God, we never have to pretend. We never have to put on a costume and hope to be mistaken for someone else. We can be who we really are, and be confident that we will always find full acceptance and love in God, no matter what.
True, He doesn’t always love what we do, and He never accepts sin. But He always loves and accepts us.
It’s an incredible idea, one that it took me many years to wrap my mind around. But it’s true, because Scripture teaches it over and over. God loves us. He loves us. He loves us. The real us—the person we are underneath.
1 John 3:1—How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! (NIV)
Hebrews 13:5b—God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” (NIV)
Lindsey took the object. She examined it. “Oh, thank you!” she exclaimed, wrapping the surprised Gisselle in a huge hug. “And thank you, God!”