Hide-n-Seek

I am currently sitting at my desk at work, on lunch, hunched down low and hoping that no will come looking for me. I'm crunching on my nachos from the downstairs cafe, pretending that they are from Salsaritas. I'm remembering my relaxing weekend, and looking forward to (already) the weekend that lies ahead. I am, in effect, hiding. Hiding from co-workers (I was, however, just found, multiple times actually.) Hiding from reality of my lunch. Hiding, however ineffectively, from the start of a new work week. I hide quite a bit. Hide and wish away today and hope for tomorrow which won't come nearly fast enough. And, at the end of the day, I'll go home to my quiet place, where I find peace and quiet and alone-ness.

I also hide my heart. The dark part. The parts that people would cause people to shutter if they saw first hand. The side that threatens to overtake me on a daily basis. Yesterday, the pastor at my church talked about this very situation. He said, "Look at your neighbor, and tell them your worst "sin"." There were many people who started talking immediately before he yelled, "Kidding! Don't do it!" I myself sat there without saying anything, not because I have no sins but because I was trying to think of what would be the worst. The piece of candy that I found on the floor of the store when I was three? (Yeah, I ate it.) My attitude? Maybe. The way I've treated people. Perhaps? But, I think most of all, my worst sin is a combination of all that is laying hidden in my heart so that no one can see it- hypocrisy. "Oh, but you are so sweet!" And, I have had people say that, but they don't see me as I roll my eyes and make a face at something that someone did. Or, they don't know the attitude that I've had, the impatient, rude attitude when someone "bothers" me, or makes me wait when I am in a hurry. I am---hiding. And yet, try as I might, there is someone who still sees me as I am crouching in my "hide-n-seek" position.

He can see my heart, and the black that is there. And, as of late, I've wanted to have a painting done over the black and have it covered the purest shade of white. But I can't hold the paintbrush. In the past, when I've tried to paint over the stain, I've managed to cause streaks, and instead of a pearly white, I have a gray mess. The paintbrush has to be relinquished to someone else, who has the ability to not cover up, but make white from the inside out.

And so I sit in the secret place, in quiet, and I'm asking God to look at this heart of mine and too make me new. To make the appearance of the outside the truth on the inside, and not the other way around.

He is the only one who can make me new.

And, I think I plan on playing on the real hide-n-seek going forward. Who wants to join?

Psalm 51:7
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

Matthew 23:27
...You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean.

Isaiah 1:18
Come now, let us reason together...though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow...