A Wicked Masquerade

“I am Oz. The Great and Powerful. Who are you? Who are you?!” – Oz, speaking to Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz

Hello Dear Friend,

We all remember the movie, Dorothy sets off on the yellow brick road with her dog and basket in tow, accompanied by the unlikeliest of characters, in search of the Emerald City to meet Oz. Fast forward a good bit and we reach the point in the movie where Dorothy is standing before “THE GREAT AND POWERFUL OZ” or so she’s led to believe until her dog, Toto, pulls the curtain away to reveal the man standing behind the curtain isn’t all that grand or powerful. Instead, he’s created a theatric illusion of who Oz is and has successfully been fooling everyone through his little masquerade the entire time.  

Isn’t it interesting how the enemy uses the same method as Oz? The enemy spends all his time as a wolf in sheep's clothing. He spends all his energy trying to make you believe that he is something that he’s not – all great and powerful. When in truth, he’s nothing. Better yet, he’s less than nothing. But oh, how he’s mastered deceit! You are his target, and he moves in tireless pursuit to get you to believe his lies and convince you that it’s the truth. I know, because it happened to me. I was a victim caught in the masquerade. 

I’ve recently discovered that I’ve been held captive by a lie that the enemy planted in me when I was very young. Unknown to me, that lie took root and spread deep within my heart and for decades I didn’t know I was being deceived. In fact, I didn’t even recognize it as a lie at all. Instead, I saw it as my truth.   

It was April 10, 2025, and was I having a day! Seriously, the day had caused severe mental exhaustion. So much so, I had been using the analogy of feeling like I was trying to run a marathon but all the while my feet were stuck in quicksand and instead of moving forward, I just kept sinking deeper. Needless-to-say, the mental exhaustion had caused me to feel physical tiredness as well. And as the workday ended, in my weary state all I wanted to do was go home. But I couldn’t, I had signed up to attend an event for women entitled, “Thrive: Rescued.” that was happening at my workplace later that evening. I fought the urge to just forget it and go home since I knew that most likely if I did give in then I would probably miss out on something that the Lord had planned for me.

So, I went. I had a great meal, partook in a little worship, and listened to one of my dear friends share bits and pieces of her testimony. Since I had a forty-minute drive home and had to be back in the office bright and early the next morning, (I had literally promised my boss that I would return after he’d jokingly pleaded, “Please come back tomorrow.” I told you, it had been a day), I left as soon as the evening ended. By the time I got home I went straight to bed thinking and hoping that I would fall asleep quickly. But Someone had other plans and in the darkness of my room, sitting under the covers on my bed, my mind started to decompress from the events of the day. Reflecting a little on the testimony my friend had given earlier that night I guess subconsciously I was zeroed in on the part that pertained to her believing in a lie that the enemy had planted in her heart last summer. There it was, I had heard this part of her testimony three times over the past couple of weeks and God suddenly met me without warning. In the darkness, in the stillness, the Holy Spirit spoke and revealed to me the lie that I had been believing since I was six years old. 

“Six?” I remember thinking, “No way, are you sure? I mean I can remember maybe being ten but six? What happened when I was six, other than us moving to another state?”

The Holy Spirit said it again, “You’ve been believing the lie – that the best you will ever be is second best, since you were six years old.”

Like a dam being broken the tears started racing down my face and I began an ugly cry. As the revelation started setting in, I could feel myself being released from the bondage of the lie I had suppressed for over three decades. “Thirty years?” I questioned as I cried even harder and thanked God for bringing that lie out of the darkened shadows it had been living in and pulling it to the surface so that it could be revealed in His marvelous light.  

He then revealed to me the event when that root lie took hold and since I was six years old, I was led to belief that lie to be my truth. The best I would ever be in anyone’s eyes was second best. In various cases, by various people, throughout my life, it had been proven to me over and over. Why would I question it? Why would I doubt it? It had become a fact proven again and again at numerous times, over multiple situations, from my adolescence and teen years to my young adult life and even now. I had come to terms with it. I had made peace with it. It was just my reality. And that my dear friend, that was the masquerade.

Little by little, bit by bit and completely unknown to me, I had been letting the enemy lead me through his theatric illusions until I was convinced that the lie that he had buried so deep in me, when I was far too young to even notice it had been planted or that it had rooted itself in my heart, was the truth.  

Imagine you’re in middle school and it’s time for gym class. Everyone is gathered in that smelly old gym standing in front of the designated captions, waiting for them to pick their teams. There you are standing among them as players are picked and run over to join the other members of their team. It’s in the waiting you begin to think, “Please let somebody pick me already! I know I’m not the greatest player so I get why I wouldn’t be chosen as first pick or even second or third...maybe even fourth or fifth. But dear God, don’t let me last! Don’t let one of these guys settle to take me as part of their team just because there’s no one left to choose from.”  

We’ve all felt that way. We’ve all dealt with that insecurity that we won’t be chosen. Through that thought process we begin to think less and less of ourselves, falling deeper and deeper into insecurity until, as a result, we end up settling for less than God’s best. We think, just so long as someone choses me I’m okay with that. I don’t have to be their first choice as long as I’m “a” choice.  

And there it begins. We start to lose our self-esteem, and our confidence weakens until all we can see when we look at the mirror are the flaws. That’s when we show up for the enemy's masquerade.  

Since my youth I’d always known that I’d never be a favorite, not with anyone – ever. It was a fact, proven to on more than one occasion. It was part of the lie I had been led to believe causing the roots of that lie to run even deeper. I’d never be first pick, that was obvious. I was the one that people settled for when there wasn’t anyone else around – another part of the lie that fed more roots to grow. Furthermore, and this is the icing on the cake, – I was the girl that was often left behind as soon as someone or something better came along. 

There’s a truth that the Holy Spirit brought forth which had been hidden under the weight of that root lie. And here it is, here’s the truth that Jesus told me by the revealing of the Holy Spirit, “You’ve been believing the lie, that the best you can ever be is second best since you were six years old, but I left the ninety-nine for you. I chose you. You are My first pick. You are my number one.” 

You can’t imagine what that truth in those words did for me. Or maybe you can. Maybe, like me, you can relate to that one child that was always left standing alone waiting for a team to pick them for the ball game and only added to a team out of pity. I was never chosen, I was the stand in. The “B-list” friend, the girl you kinda knew but never really wanted to take the time to get to know. Just that girl that served as someone to chat with and to pass the time until the person you really wanted to be with showed up. This was the part of the lie that fueled Satan to weave something else into the roots of that lie – The fear of abandonment. 

The fear of abandonment is something that I’ve only half admitted for years now. I rather casually pass it off in conversations from time to time without much depth. Saying things like, “I think I might need counseling because I think I may have abandonment issues. Although, I have no idea where that would come from since I had a great home life and I’m super close with both my parents.”  

In truth, I think I was lying to myself. Deep down I knew where my abandonment issues came from, I just didn’t want to go there and admit it. Due to that root lie of never being anything more than second best, somewhere down the road I developed trust issues that slowly had me isolate myself from people. I began to live my life guarded, careful to not get too invested in other’s or let anyone really see me or get too close to me for “fear” that they’d eventually leave. Again, this is something that has happened time after time giving off the illusion to be a proven truth instead of a covered lie.  

What did that lie do to me? Well, it caused me to live in the safety of solitude. Years ago, the Lord revealed to me something that I had filed away and never really did anything with. Up until the other night, I didn’t realize that this was attached to the root lie I’ve been talking about. I’ve always been an introvert to the core, no question, but here’s the revelation that the Holy Spirit gave me a few years back, “You are an introvert by nature but somewhere down the road, you became a loner by choice.” The other night I was reminded of that word, but this time He spoke and uncovered something else, “You’ve never participated in life. You exist. You go to work and do the things you have to do but you don’t participate in your own life.” 

It was then that I realized that since I was a teenage – honestly you could probably pinpoint it to a life-event that happened to me when I was thirteen – I realized that I’ve kept myself locked up and hidden from the world and from the sight of others. I choose to hide out in the comfort of my solitude watching TV to escape from reality and enter the made-up world of entertainment becoming one of the characters in the show instead of living the lead role in my own life. 

For a while now, I’ve felt unsettled and restless. I’ve been undergoing a Spiritual War since the start of the new year and even mentioned to others more than once in the past months that I feel like I’m in a Spiritual Battle but failing to be able to see why. A few weeks ago, I was on my lunch break and chatting with friends and I remember saying that I felt like there was a major shift about to take place in my life but I couldn’t see what it was, I had no idea what it looked like or what areas of my life that the shift would affect once it did happened.  

Well, I’ve found my shift, it’s Spiritual freedom! The weight to a Spiritual stronghold that I didn’t even know was there has been lifted and the links in the chain are being broken as my healing process begins. This past week, God stepped into the enemy's masquerade to rescue me and get me out of there. In the process of my rescue, He’s exposed the masquerade of lies. He’s breaking it all down, ripping away the masks, tearing down strongholds, and peeling back layer upon layer. As He exposes more and more it’s like I’m pulling at a string on the bottom of a curtain. The more I pull at the string the more the curtain begins to unravel and the more that the curtain is unraveled the more the truth, that’s been locked away and hidden in me for so long, is revealed.  

Right now, I just keep pulling at that string and with the waves of information I’m doing the one thing I know to do – which is to write it down. And yeah, I may not be sure what comes next as far as what exercises I need to take in my healing process but that will come in due time. For now, I’m letting Jesus move in me to tear down the walls that were built by all the lies I was never meant to carry.  

“Yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places.”  – Habakkuk 3:18-19, (ESV)

With love,

a Poetic Soul