of cardboard people and plastic smiles

Have you ever been in a store or a movie theatre where they have those life-size cutouts of people or celebrities that are forever advertising some sort of product? They are always airbrushed perfection; real people hiding behind a perfectly proportionate veil of human likeness.

Hello.

My name is Bethany Hawkins, and I am a cardboard person.

I think all of us, to some extent, are cardboard people. We all have masks...something that we are hiding behind.

For me, it's pretending my life is perfect. I have mastered the art of the plastic smile.

The plastic smile that says, "Everything is alright." The plastic smile that says, "Please tell me your problems so that I can ignore my own." The plastic smile that hides a broken one.

But this weekend, my cardboard person fell over and my plastic smile melted. This weekend, I had to remove my mask and be vulnerable...

...or lose some very precious relationships.

I praise the Lord that He has given my friends the ability to extend grace and mercy despite my withdrawn self. Mercy is something that I will never be able to understand. I have never been able to. It's just something beyond that which I can comprehend. I love to dive deep and tackle difficult logical and philosophical problems, but when it comes to mercy, I have nothing more than a very simple mind.

It's the simpleness of my mind that demands I earn the grace and mercy that is extended towards me. The paradox of grace though, is that it is something that simply cannot be earned. No matter how hard I strive, push myself, labor towards, struggle after, or endeavor to attain this thing called "grace," I frankly cannot. It's in the very nature of grace to be something unearned and undeservedly given.

I continue to pray that the Lord would grant me understanding of this glorious and supernatural concept because without His help, my mind can no more realize it than the mind of a cardboard cutout could.