Year of Halloween

Seeing those cute kids come to my door, dressed as familiar characters and evil witches makes my heart jump for joy! I love seeing them tough strong storms JUST for tradition and of course, the prize of a pillow case of candy. They're always dressed up so nicely. They love, for that one day, being someone else. Being who they want to be, just that once. Just for that one day, they're not told that they're not who they're pretending to be.

I remember my favorite costume I've ever had. The one that I had wanted and thought about for a year. Wolverine. I wanted to be the famous X-Men character tha was rough and wild. He had awesome claws sticking out between his knuckles, but most of all, it was his facial hair that got me. He had the greatest side burns known to man kind. No one, I repeat NO ONE could beat my man Wolverine's sweet facial hair style. He was my hero and I looked up to everything he'd do. Anyway, FINALLY I talked my parents into getting the thirty dollar suit and making some five dollar side burns. I was him. I was THE wolverine. Hugh Jackman, who was that? JON WALKER was the new sheriff in this perfectly groomed, sideburn obsessed town.

I will never forget when pretend became becoming. In my mind, I was no longer little Jonny Walker wearing an overly priced suit made from the cheapest material in the world, I was James Howlett, the feared Wolverine super hero. Though my cheap, plastic claws were bending in half, they looked like the sharpest steel weapons I had ever seen. I wouldn't even touch people for fear of mutilating them. I WAS Wolverine.

I thought back to that great moment, and realized I was now living in a new Halloween costume each year. I put on a mask, and slowly became a new person that I believed was me. I was no longer Jonny Walker that year, but I was a new person. Whether that was for better or for worse, I couldn't tell unless I took off the mask at the end of that year and looked at what I thought I was and realized how great or how rediculous I was being.

I look back to the beginning of last school year and realized how much I've grown since taking of, what I thought, was my cool mask. I've stopped caring about what people think about me, and decided that I should let my face always show. If people don't like the man behind that mask, that's not my problem, and I pray that someday they'll change their minds!

Though sometimes our mask are for better, we must become that masked person. If it improves our lives and draws us closer to our Heavenly Father, don't keep that as a mask any longer, but make that mask you. Become what you love, not what you hate. Often times we'll put on a mask that we thought would be too scary years ago, but because we think it's more mature, we wear it to impress. The only person that matters when it comes to impressions is our Father in Heaven. He sees behind our yearly masks to who we really are. We can't fool Him. No matter how different or scary the masks we wear are, He will pull them away and teach us that those evil, scary masks will only hurt us and cause us pain, even if others feel like they're the cooler ones or the better looking designs.

We must never forget that our Heavenly Father loves us for who we are and for who we hide. Take off the mask and become. Whatever the mask is, whether good or evil, be you and that's where the happiness lies. The the TRUE you. Don't be someone that thinks they are someone else. If we live behind masks, we'll never find who we truly are! Don't make all year a Halloween, keep that for one day a year and use plastic masks.

And don't forget the side burns. They're the most important part. :)
Food for thought!