Growing up, there were eighteen cousins on my dad’s side of the family. Most gatherings involved homemade ice cream, LOTS of kids and occasionally farm animals in the kitchen of my Aunt Suzie’s house. (I know, it’s not normal. And, in case you are wondering, the cow’s name was Feather and the one-winged hawk was Lefty.)
After dinner, the adults always played Trivial Pursuit (it was the eighties, after all) and the kids were all sent outside to give the adults a break from, well, the kids. We usually ended up playing hide and seek. I was among the youngest of the “big kids” and I HATED this game. We played the kind where you have a base and everyone has to hide and then run to the base to be “safe” unless you get tagged, in which case you are “it”. I would rather be “it” than hide. Hiding involved the terrifying feeling someone was after you, the horrible feeling of being chased by a merciless older cousin who would tackle you to the ground if need be, and the humiliation of being tagged and mocked for being a bad hider, slow and therefore stupid.
It was a rough crowd of cousins. When not playing hide and seek, we usually played some sort of game where you pelt each other with objects. I think we may have invented cage-match style fighting too. Tattle-tales were despised and interrupting the adults with crying always got everyone in trouble, so cry-babies were shushed and threatened with violence or bribed somehow with power. (Why does my childhood suddenly sound like a prison experience? Hmmm…)
God has been reminding me of hiding lately. I find, as I have had more children and picked up more responsibilities in life that “I” get in the way a lot. The mature life has far less room for what I feel, what I think, what I need and what I want. There are too many things to do, places to go, people to help for my life to revolve around myself. But I am learning, too, that there is one place all of those self-centered parts of life can hide, their needs can be met, and my soul can grow. When I choose to be alone with God, to pray, to read, to pour out my heart and hide myself away in Him I find the thirsting quenched and the longings fulfilled.
Sure, I could buy, beg or steal what I need to feel better about my life. I could point to this area of stress, or that area of frustration and declare that once they are resolved I will be happy and able to grow past my weakness. There are lots of books I could read that would help me organize my time, fix my relationships, give me money-making secrets. All of those things would probably improve my life, and definitely make me fell a little better. But then my life would still be all about ME, which, at the end of it all I do not want!
What I want is to know God. Somehow, if all I am trying to do is improve MY life, I know I will miss out on what I really want. No child ever lauded his mother for being amazing only because she had the most amazing collection of antiques he ever saw. A pretty house does not make a home. No husband ever bragged to his friends that his wife had read every cookbook ever written. Gourmet cuisine without a soft heart will not win a man’s affection. No society ever declared one of its members as its greatest simply for finding a way to be happy and have a nice life. Your happiness cannot change a nation.
Hiding our souls away in time with God is a part of mature, grown-up life. God has been saying the same words to me lately, and they are right there in black and white in Isaiah 4 and Psalm 32:
It [God’s glory] will be a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and hiding place from the storm and rain.
You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.
His glory is a place to hide, a warm guiding light when life is too cold or too hot. I am protected there. Knowing God as a hiding place is scary, just like hiding in the woods outside Aunt Suzie’s house was scary.
But it is safe, because He promises to be a refuge for us.
And, that makes me think of these words:
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. -Galatians 2:20
I know that if I have hidden in Him I will stand firmly before Him one day, knowing I didn’t live my life well- He lived His life in me for His own glory.
So, what is a girl to do, but hide… and let Him handle the rest.
