So What Do You Need?

Our son Sam, then eleven, started playing football last year. One fall Saturday he hopped in the car beside Don, and off they went to the first practice. I dropped by the sports field a little while later, eager to see my sports-loving boy discover a new venue for showing off his athletic talent.

It took me a while to pick him out of the crowd of kids lining up head-to-head then charging at each other at full speed. From a distance they all looked alike because they were all wearing top-heavy helmets and enormous shoulder pads. Eventually, though, one of the helmets turned my way, and a few minutes later Sam came trotting over to me.

“Sam, is that you?” I said, my eyes wide in mock amazement.

“Mom, it feels like my head’s gonna fall off,” he muttered. “I can barely move! I feel like a giant hot dog stuffed in a too-small bun.”

I laughed and patted him on the head – or, rather, the helmet. “I know it feels awkward, sugar, but you’ve gotta wear it. It protects you and keeps you from getting hurt.”

“I know, I know,” Sam groaned. “That’s what the coaches say. They say we have to practice with this stuff on so we’re used to wearing it when we have a real game.” He turned and lumbered back onto the field. Halfway there he turned and looked like he might be blowing me a kiss – but the face guard got in the way.

That conversation occurred several months ago, and let me just tell you that since that first practice, our Sam has become quite a dynamo out there on the gridiron. When it’s his turn to run out on the field, he pulls on that helmet and tears off toward the action like a gladiator eager to face the lions.

Sam needs that protective equipment when he’s playing football. As his mother, I’m glad to see his precious head encased in the helmet and his growing shoulders protected by pads when he’s on the field and his opponents seem determined to run him down and flatten him. I like it that he’s wearing extra layers when he’s “doing battle.” In fact, if I had my way, he’d probably be wearing a double helmet and triple total-body pads!

But when he comes home, I want my real Sam back – the handsome, slim, tenderhearted guy, now a sixth-grader, who snuggles up to me on the couch, wiggles under my arm for a back rub while I’m working in the kitchen, and smiles when I playfully rub his curly hair.

Sam has learned that out on the football field, he needs thick, hard layers of protection to keep from getting hurt. But he has also learned that when he’s home, in the heart of his family, the best cuddling, greatest affection, and most rewarding experiences of feeling loved come when he peels off the layers and becomes real again, like he was before he started playing football.

Hmmm. I stand looking at the sweaty pads and discarded helmet Sam dropped beside his workout clothes in the laundry room and can’t help but wish I could shed my own protective layers and become real again as easily as Sam does.

Layers? What Layers?

When we’re kids, layers may be protective sports gear or some kind of uniform or playtime costume that we can easily cast aside when we step out of our extracurricular roles and come home to our real lives, like Sam did with his football equipment. As children at home with our families, we can be ourselves, knowing we’ll be loved and protected by our parents and siblings, no matter what. We don’t have to pretend to be something we’re not. We don’t have to wear protective padding or costumes. We can just be ourselves.

At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. That’s the way most of us start out. But inevitably, something happens that changes our blissfully vulnerable and honest existence. Something hurts us – something we may not even remember fully as adults yet can’t quite forget – and gradually we build up layers of protection to keep us from getting hurt again.

The hurt may be caused by something small, like an obnoxious schoolmate loudly scoffing at the holes in our shoes or our poor grade on the math test. Or it can be something big, such as abandonment, physical injury, or sexual abuse. Whatever hurts us can cause us to pull on layers that we hope, consciously or subconsciously, will protect us or keep the hurt from happening again. These layers may  be visible in our physical bodies (like layers of fat or fingernails bitten to the quick). Or they may exist as outward behaviors (like layers of compulsiveness or unprovoked anger) that push others away from us. Or the layers may exist invisibly in our innermost thoughts (when we tell ourselves we’re unfit, unworthy, or unlovable), “protecting” us from others that we assume feel the same way about us.

Your story may be very different from mine, and your layers may be protecting you from other kinds of situations or scenarios or secrets you’ve hidden even from yourself. Maybe you’re carrying layers of fear, hid the  false belief that you’re not good enough, smart enough, slim enough, or interesting enough. Whatever layers are weighing you down, my prayer is that God will deal with you the same way He’s dealing with me. Tenderly, graciously, lovingly, He’s helping me peel those layers away to find and celebrate the original me He created. That’s the journey I’m inviting you to share with me as we move from page to page of this book . . . and from season to season of our lives.

In the beginning, when layers are new, we may be able to lay them aside and still be our authentic, genuine selves when we’re with those closest to us, the ones we still trust. Maybe we pull on our layers only when we’re around certain people or in specific situations. But whenever we allow the protective layers to remain in place, they grow ever more strongly attached to us. Pretty soon they feel so familiar we may forget what caused us to create them in the first place. We start thinking they’re real. We start believing what we see in the mirror or hear ourselves saying aloud to others or silently to ourselves. Eventually the layers become barricades, preventing us from feeling loved as we want and need.

Meanwhile, there sits the God of the universe, who created us to be His beloved children, longing to pull us into His loving embrace, rub us on the head, pat us on the back, and tell us how wonderful we are . . . while we stand there, helmeted by stubbornness, padded by shame, armored by failure, and hardened by guilt, wanting with everything in our being to shed the layers and fall blissfully and unburdened into His everlasting arms.

But try as we might, we can’t do it. We can’t loosen the layers and step free of the protective barricade we’ve built around ourselves.

This abridged excerpt was adapted with permission from Layers © 2008 by Sandi Patty. All rights reserved.