Hide-n-Seek

Hide-n-seek was always one of my favorite games. There was one time when I was eleven and at my cousins house for his twelfth birthday that we played hide-n-seek outside in the dark. I crawled up into the bed of my uncle's truck and lay there watching the stars. There were so many of us playing that they went through five seekers before they realized no one knew where Jenn was. It was quite funny actually because I was right under their noses the whole time. I could hear them saying everyone was found and who was the next seeker; and yet, they never realized I was missing. Well my brother Adam knew they hadn't found me because while he was looking for a hiding spot the second time around he saw me. He said, "I thought you were still missing." He was under strict orders not to tell anyone where I was and we were going to see how long it would take everyone else to notice. While I lay in the truck on this absolutely cloudless night I was able to see over a dozen shooting stars. The sight was absolutely breath taking. I laid there absolutely in awe of the Creator hoping no one would find me.

Over the years I have played hide-n-seek many times. And I've come to realize that I play hide-n-seek in my personal life as well. Sometimes I try hiding from myself and sometimes from others. Growing up as technically the "middle" child, you can sometimes feel that you're insignificant. I've often wondered would anyone miss me if I disappeared, would they even know I'm gone. And with those thoughts I withdrew mentally and emotionally from my family and peers, wondering, hoping that someone would reach out and say, "I see you. I know you exist. And I'm glad."

These last few months have been extra hard for me because I haven't liked the person I see. And so I've withdrawn from people. I didn't want people to see the ugliness in me that I was seeing. I've played hide-n-seek from myself as well as others.

My desire is to be real, but when you can't even stand the sight of the real you how do you share that with others. I'm not talking about physically, I'm talking about the heart. The Bible says that "the heart is  deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked" (Jeremiah 17:9). Never in my life have I seen that more, than I have these past few months. And honestly it sickens me. I was so sickened by it that I was literally sick to my stomach over it. I was absolutely disgusted with myself. It took me days of berating myself and confessing my ugliness to finally hear the voice of my father, "You're forgiven. All I see is white as snow."

Instantly I had peace in knowing I was forgiven. God didn't cast me off or disdain me. He was still the loving Father I'd always known, but there was still a problem. I didn't like the me I was seeing. Honestly if you could've seen it you wouldn't have liked it either. I can't even describe it... It was bad! Too realize your heart is so full of anger, bitterness, and hate. Yes HATE! Disgusted me! I understood I was forgiven, but that didn't change the fact that it was there. And I wanted it out! I prayed, and worried, and was sick. And then repeated that. The only thing I could think of to do was confess. I prayed some more and asked God to please take this ugliness away (before I confessed), but it was there. And I'm going to say this again I was physically sick to my stomach - a combination of nerves over having to go and tell the person I was angry and disgusted with the sin in my life. Sin I didn't really understand was there.

Finally, the meeting was set.

I was a nervous wreck. I wrung my hands, and hung my head. I choked out the words. And waited. I waited to be condemned, yelled at, thrown out. I waited for judgment. When it didn't come I was confused. Did they not realize how ugly I am? Did they not realize the bitterness stored in my heart? Did they not understand that at one point without realizing it I hated them? And so I explained again. Waiting expectantly for the cry of shock and then the judgment. I waited to hear, "I knew it. You're not good enough. I knew you were a failure. I knew you'd never be good enough."

Instead in a gentle voice full of mercy I heard, "How can I condemn you? I know my own heart." What?! Wow! I looked up and thought 'there is no way your heart is evil like mine.' And then I remembered those words from Jeremiah again. Yes their heart was as evil as mine, but like mine it had also been washed in the Blood, that soul cleansing Blood of the Lamb. And I thought wow God. Wow. God found me! I tried to hide my evil heart but God found it, cleansed it, renewed and restored it. The root of ugliness is gone. I'm so thankful that God knows what he's doing and that although I can play hide-n-seek with everyone including myself, I can never hide where God can't see me! And He loves me enough to pull me out of me everytime!