You don’t have to hide anymore/You don’t have to face this on your own/you don’t have to hide anymore
“Hide,” Joy Williams
Have I been hiding behind my own shyness to try and protect myself from loving too hard, having people hurt me, and being responsible for telling them what they don’t want to hear?
Is that why I keep thinking I’m not enough? I am, and I know I am. But I feel like I keep failing Him in the “Christian life,” that he has blessed me with so many talents, material things, and abilities, as well as a good situation. And I hide behind it.
I came on this race because I don’t want to hide anymore.
I want to stop the numbing. I want to love until it rips my heart out when something happens and I get hurt. I want to say what is hard even when I fear rejection because I am responsible, and I would have people do the same for me. My love is not my own. I don’t have a limited supply.
I want Your love. I can’t imagine how you survive when people stab you in the back every moment, choosing anything and everything but You.
I want to be drunk with You. When it’s unpopular. When people think I’m overzealous loving and praying and sacrificing for them. But above all, loving on You. I have a very hazy idea of what that looks like – of what it is to be filled over the brim with Jesus and letting the Holy Spirit guide me wherever. Being on His schedule; not mine.
I am afraid. I’m afraid of causing the same hurt that I have tried to protect myself from. Empathy, seeing in Your eyes what has ripped through my body like an IV of acid—how can I bear it?
Because You bore it.
You’re still bearing it.
I’m not alone.
This race isn’t about me. It’s about finally, totally, surrendering to You. It’s about stepping out in faith even when my mind isn’t sure of the outcome or doesn’t trust. It’s about bringing life to the clichés we say in church but don’t live out. Walking by faith. Walking with the Spirit. Having Him lead us where our trust is without borders. The lies we tell, raising our hands to heaven as if we meant it. Then we walk out of the sanctuary and forget the whole thing.
I see this place where one house can be considered a palace in Guatemala and the next house is a dump, even for the other places I’ve been. Honduras is mixed with the rich and the dirt poor (literally living on dirt, eating food from dirt, wearing dirt, breathing dirt). Do I really believe they are worth it? That they are children of God and are worth leaving my comfort zone to speak life into them and tell them what jewels they are? To expose the wonder and amazement of the Gospel into their weary, despondent lives?
If your faith has nothing to test it, it weakens like a car sitting in the driveway for a long time or a hammock laid out in the sun and rain for months. I’m not that hammock. I’m going to pour it all out, but first I must be filled. And refilled, and overflowing.
I don’t have to hide anymore.
