Hide-and-Seek

You're lying in the dirt under the prickly leaves of a bush in the backyard. The torrential rain is pouring down and the soft dirt is quickly turning to oozing mud. Something brushes past your arm, sending a shiver up your spine. Spider! You stifle a scream, flail frantically looking for a stick and flick it far away - or so you hope. But then there's another hanging only inches from your face. The flashlight of someone looking for you passes by every once in awhile, stinging and blinding your eyes that have adjusted to the thick blackness. A voice calls, "Where are you, child? Why are you hiding?". You don't dare answer, certain you will be rejected and condemned if the voice discovers where you've been hiding and what a mess you are. Your heart races and your whole body shakes every time you hear footsteps disturb the eerie silence. Is it the seeker or a wanted criminal? You most certainly don't want to be found, but you would rather face the stinging, blinding flashlight and hear your name called, even condemningly, than be carried off deeper into the night.

Fear takes hold and you have to act, so you crawl out from your dingy hiding place and hesitatingly present yourself to the seeker. Matted hair, skin scratched by thorns, clothes caked with mud and torn by jagged rocks. You stand there blinded by comforting light as the pain of leaving the thorny bush's cold embrace slowly eases. You're ashamed to stand there in such a deplorable state. You say, "This is where I've been hiding. It's cold, wet, dirty, painful, and frightening. I thought hiding there was a good idea, but I realize, now, it wasn't. I want to go inside now." Love says, "I'm so glad you came out. I've been waiting for you a long time. Come get warm, dry, and clean. It's safe and comfortable inside."

But then, "It won't be easy to get clean, warm, and dry," you think. "I'm such a mess. Cleaning these scratches will hurt. No, I'd better not go inside." You've forgotten how awful it was in your hiding place and all about your fear of the wanted criminal. So you turn around and scramble back under the thorny bush. Back to the mud, cold, spiders, wet, and black of night.

But... you just don't do that when you're playing hide-and-seek. You can't. Why? Because you just told the seeker where you are hiding. You can't hide anymore! Your ugly has been brought into the light. Love saw it and love also saw when you went back into hiding. And love doesn't let you hide because of your ugly without a hard fight. Love will fight for you to go inside and be made warm and dry, clean and healed, safe and comfortable.

Love runs after you to your hiding place and says, "Beloved, I know where you are. Hiding will only hurt you more. I long for you to be made whole. Please, beloved. Come out. Come inside the house with me."

You say to yourself like you did before, "If I just wait, the spiders and wanted criminal will go away. I'll become clean and dry and warm, eventually. These scratches will heal. If I leave my hiding place, I'll be hated and condemned. Yes, I'll just wait here and everything will get better, and then I'll come out and no one will ever know I was cold and dirty and wet and scared and scratched. Everything will be fine if I just stay."

It's a lie. A blatant one, really, but you can't see it for what it is. If you lie in the mud, how will you get clean? If you remain in the prickly embrace of thorns, how will your scratches heal?  If you stay outside in the cold and rain, how will you get warm and dry? If you stay outside in the dark, how will you be safe from spiders and criminals on the loose? The truth is, staying in hiding will only make you more dirty, more cold and wet, more wounded, more scared, and more endangered.

Love is waiting with outstretched arms. Love is fighting for you. Love is yearning for you. Love won't condemn you. Love won't reject you. Love will make you whole. 

You don't have to hide. Run back to love.