Hiding

Have you ever played hide and seek with a 2 year old?  You know, when they hide in a corner because if they can't see you then clearly you can't see them.  Their brains have not yet developed the ability to understand that their reality is not the same as your reality.  

When I was at Emmaus, this was one image that kept popping in my mind, because it is what I try to do with God.  And then this morning I read this (these quotes are from Grace for the Good Girl: Letting Go of the Try-Hard Life by Emily P. Freeman) :

I hide behind my smile and my laid-back personality.  I hide behind fine and good.  I hide behind strong and responsible.  I hide behind busy and comfortable and working hard toward your expectations.  And if I do not meet your expectations, I hide behind indifferent. 

And the reason behind this...

My idea of who I should be is at war with who I am.  I want to be perfect in every situation.  I just do.  I want to know what to do.  I want to know how to do it right.  And I want to do it.  All. By. My. Big. Self. 

And so I work and I labor and I do the right thing.  I stay strong when I feel weak and I fake happy when I want to cry because my ideal image has everything to do with put together and nothing to do with falling apart.

Yes.  This is what God was showing me at Emmaus.  That I don't need to have it all figured out and put together.  That I don't need to do everything perfectly.  I don't need to do it all myself. That I don't need to hide.  And besides the fact, God already knows.  I'm a two year old playing hide and seek with God.  God who already knows everything about me - who knows me better than I know myself.  I'm not fooling him.  He probably looks at me hiding like I look at that two-year old thinking,  "It's so cute that you think you can hide that way."  And then he seeks me like my hiding actually worked.  And keeps "seeking" until I'm willing to admit that my hiding is not very good.

Me and my buddy Jared
When I was in Honduras, I spent probably a good 45 minutes playing "hide and seek" with a little boy named Jared.  Except he was hidden in the curtains.  Every single time.  But I would look under the pillow.  And under the chair.  And wherever else I could think of, before "finding" him the in the curtains.  And every time he would giggle ecstatically when I found him.


There are two things we can learn from this game I had with Jared.  First, Jared was secure in was the knowledge that I was searching for him.  Because each time I searched I would say, "¿Dónde está  Jared?" (Where is Jared?) and with each place I searched, I would ask, "Aqui?"  (Here?)  There is peace in knowing that even when we're hiding we will be found.  God is searching.  We can have peace and security in knowing that the God of the universe is pursuing us.  He knows right where we are but just like sometimes Jared would fling the curtains open so I would find him, God will wait for us to say "Here I am."  
The second thing is that Jared (in the middle) remembered the best part of hide and seek: being found. You can see the joy on the faces of these young ones.  There is joy in being found, because there is freedom in not having to hide anymore.  This is the joy and freedom I found on my Emmaus walk.  And this is what I am trying to incorporate as I have reentered my "real life."  It hasn't been easy as crazy as my life has been in the 3 weeks since my walk. And yet, having experienced that joy and freedom, I know I can't go back to "life as usual."

And just as Jared's joy and laughter was contagious so that he had 2 friends join him, our joy in the freedom that is found will make others wonder what is different about us.  And through that we can share the peace, joy, love, and freedom that is found in the grace of God. "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.  I once was lost but now I'm found.  Was blind but now I see." 

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