Someone I hold in high regard once looked at me and said,
“There’s so much radiance surrounding you. You bring the sun.”
My confusion was as wide as the smile I forced across my face. Because I thought it was obvious. I thought everyone could see I was struggling. I thought everyone could see in the lines across my face and the sadness in my eyes that life had not been kind, that I was drowning in emotions too heavy for me to carry, and too tangled for me to name. I thought the storm inside me was spilling over.
But it wasn’t. At least, not to them.
That moment revealed something I had long suspected about myself. I am very, very good at cosplaying happiness. And that, if I’m honest, is heartbreaking. I’ve been trained in it my whole life. Smile through the pain. Never let them see you sweat. Never let them know you’re weak. Keep your chin up. Stiffen your upper lip. Never let them see you cry.
Life is hard for everyone, not just me. And since life is hard, the logic goes, you don’t complain, you’re not allowed to. You “choose” joy because you shouldn’t look like your problems.
So I perform.
But sometimes I wonder, do others perform too? When people say they’re happy, are they truly happy, or are they just reciting the same lines I’ve memorised? Is life really what they dreamed it would be, or are they also smiling through clenched teeth, swallowing hurt just to look whole?
I am grateful to live in a time when conversations about mental health are more open than they were before. Where naming depression, anxiety, and trauma isn’t as taboo. And yet… the more we talk, the more brokenness we uncover. Sometimes it feels like we’ve just opened our eyes to the fact that the floodgates are open, and water was always there. But can we just admit that we were always sinking in it?
Faith has always been central to my life. I grew up in church, in Sunday school classrooms with Bible stories and songs about joy. I still believe in God, though my faith has been battered, tested, stretched thin. I’m a believer through and through.
But if I’m being honest, church often felt like another stage. Bright smiles. Raised hands. Scripted words.
There’s even a name for this language: Christianese.
Stand to Reason describes it as thus: Christianese is the language Christians speak at church and to other Christians. It has two characteristics. One, it’s churchy. It contains theologically loaded lingo that is understandable to other Christians. Two, it’s full of clichés and idioms.
It’s the overly positive, spiritual vocabulary that is largely incomprehensible to non-Christians.
“How are you?”
“I’m blessed and highly favoured, my brother.”
It sounds good. It sounds holy. And sometimes it’s true. But sometimes, it’s a mask. Sometimes, it’s a performance. And the scariest part is, we all seem to know it.
And beneath it all lies this unspoken rule. You, as a Christian, are not expected to be fine. Because if you’re not fine, if you admit to struggling, if you confess your doubt or pain, then the pointed words begin:
“Where is your faith? Don’t you trust God? A good Christian wouldn’t feel that way.”
So we learn quickly. We perform faith, even when it feels fragile. We smile and clap and say “Amen” even when we’re questioning inside. We trade honesty for acceptance because the risk of being seen as faithless is much too heavy to bear.
But here’s the hypocrisy: the very place that preaches grace often becomes the place that punishes honesty. The same Jesus who invited the weary and heavy-laden is often represented by churches that only welcome the cheerful and victorious. The gospel that begins with “Blessed are the poor in spirit” somehow gets twisted into “Blessed are the ones who look like they have it all together.”
The Bible itself tells a different story. David, “a man after God’s own heart,” wrote psalms full of lament, crying, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” Elijah, after a great victory, collapsed under a tree and begged God to let him die. Even Jesus wept openly at the tomb of Lazarus and sweated drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. Scripture is full of holy people who were broken, doubting, and undone and still wholly loved by God.
So why does the church expect perfection when God never did? Why do we fear honesty in the one place that should be safest for it? If the church is supposed to be a hospital for the broken, then why do so many of us feel like patients pretending to be doctors? Why do we keep showing up sick but acting healed, afraid that if we show our wounds, we’ll be sent away as unworthy?
Church, in and of itself, isn’t the only stage. Society itself is built on performance. Instagram filters. Perfectly framed family photos. The illusion of success, even as debt piles up, as marriages strain, as hearts break silently behind closed doors.
We all play this dance of perfection. But what if we didn’t?
What if we could stop auditioning for love and start showing up as we are? What if we were allowed to be messy, to be complicated, to be real? What if “How are you?” could be answered with the truth, “I’m not okay”, and instead of recoiling, people leaned closer?
I don’t have the answers. These are half-thoughts, unfinished prayers, and aching questions that keep me up at night. But maybe the point isn’t to have answers. Maybe the point is to tell the truth, even if it’s uncomfortable. To admit:
Here I am. Not fine. Not glowing. Not cosplaying happiness. Just here. Still here.
And maybe, just maybe, this honesty is the real radiance people could see.