Ollie Ollie In Come Free

I never liked the game of hide and seek.  It just got boring after awhile, when some of the players found really good spots and the fun of finding them was replaced with the boring and tedious task of never figuring out where they'd gone.  My attention span was never that long. 

So while I never much cared for the game, I do like to hide.  I do it all the time.  It has become my coping method of choice and habit.  I'm not sure it's really a good thing, either.

I don't hide, as some people do, behind an emotional or facial mask of content and happiness.  I actually hide -- I immerse myself in computer games, I go to my sewing room and work, or I just get away from the house, alone, and am by myself.  I don't answer my cell phone, and I don't tell people where I'm going.  Sometimes I just go to sleep.  I don't generally call my friends (although I am always happy to see them), I don't participate in group functions much.  I don't like retreats and conferences because of all the people and the schedule and feeling herded.

I quite literally hide, and I do not want to be found.

This frustrates my family on a regular basis.  They need me to be available to them.  But when I can't, when the stress level is just too high or I'm just too tired, or I've just had enough -- I have to get away.  Because I'm an introvert, this happens on a regular basis.  It frustrates my friends, too, who tend to think I don't care about them.  It's not that, truly.  It's just that being alone is far less work than to cope with everyone's personality.

I'd love to say that I haven't always been this way, but it's not true.  I have always been this way.  People are hard for me.  I want to please them, and I am continually frustrated by the fact that I disappoint them regularly.  I try, and then I default to my usual habits.  And I hate myself for failing them, so I hide.  My husband has always interpreted this as my lack of care about what others think of me.  In reality, it is quite the opposite.

Here is what Matthew 5:14-16 has to say about it:

¹⁴ “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵ Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Probably the most ironic thing about all this hiding I do is that most people around me will insist that I'm not an introvert at all.  They would readily say that I'm an extrovert.  I find this very funny, because I have effectively fooled them quite expertly.  


I fool them by hiding the way most people do - by putting on a face, an attitude, a general aura of happy well-being.  The trouble is that I can't keep it up for very long at all.  Depending on the day and how physically and emotionally rested I am, I can only keep this up for a few hours, maybe a day.  But that's it.  


Perhaps I should have been an actor.  I could have been rich.  Surely I have missed my true calling.


Well, here's the thing of it:  (I swear I'm going to have that engraved on my dad's grave; he says it all the time) -- 


God knows my name, He is infinitely patient, and He calls to me every minute of every day.  He says "Come out, Jenny.  I know you're in there.  You must trust Me."


How can I refuse Him?  I always venture out cautiously.  And then I wander away, fascinated by some thing or another, and end up in that same vicious cycle of disappointing people or hurting someone or getting hurt myself.  Sounds like regular life for most of us, doesn't it?


It is regular life.  And that is entirely beside the point.  Remember what Beaver said about Aslan?


"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver."Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you." 

Following the King isn't always a safe business; the King Himself isn't safe.  We get beaten up and hurt along the way.  We hurt others.  This isn't because we're bad people, or because we can't cope.  It's because we're human.  It is because we learn from failure as much as success.

And quite honestly, hiding doesn't fix it.  It just delays it for a bit.


So I am working on not hiding these days.  Being in the company of people who don't hide helps a lot.  In order to be with them, I have to come out of hiding.  It's ok to take a break every now and then.  But if I'm away for too long, my light goes out, and I might just as well have put it under a bowl in the first place.  And then there's all the trouble of finding a match or a lighter, and feeding it enough to get it burning brightly again -- with all that hassle, you'd think I wouldn't even have gone into hiding and let it go out in the first place.


So once again, I come out of hiding.  It is a tenuous business and I am afraid.  But I know He is the one who calls me out, and moreover, it is an amazing thing to be caught up in this thing that my friend Richard called "the reckless raging fury that they call the love of God."

Deep breath.  Here goes.


xoxoxox

The Weight of Glory

From I Corinthians 18:

35-38
Some skeptic is sure to ask, "Show me how resurrection works. Give me a diagram; draw me a picture. What does this 'resurrection body' look like?" If you look at this question closely, you realize how absurd it is. There are no diagrams for this kind of thing. We do have a parallel experience in gardening. You plant a "dead" seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no visual likeness between seed and plant. You could never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows out of it don't look anything alike. The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different.

⁵¹ But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I'll probably never fully understand. We're not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed.

I read this today, and thought of the other night when I was up late. I'd been working, and I got hot. So I went outside to cool off.

It was a gorgeous night, very clear and cool although not really cold. The breeze was wonderful; very refreshing. I looked up, and the stars were shining like Christmas ornaments. Not the usual brightness that just shines, but a twinkling light that was blue, then red, then green, then white, then blue -- in no particular pattern, just always different. It seems like all the "big" stars did that, while others just shone white. I kept saying "diamonds, they're diamonds in the sky" over and over, marvelling.

I stood there and thanked God for his beautiful creation. Along with the stars was all the green in my yard -- the grass, the trees, the flowers, the herbs. It's just a regular yard, nothing special or even terribly organised. But does it really have to be? God's creation is at its most beautiful when it is at its wildest. Perfect landscaping is wonderful for a yard, but it can't hold a candle to an entire field full of lavender that just volunteered.

As I stood there thanking God for this, I remembered that C.S. Lewis was always reminding of what Paul told us: that this world, this life, is just a poor reflection of the life and world that is to come. Easy to say -- difficult to imagine. The key is to remember that we're not talking about some fictional idea. It's a real place, in a real location, where real beings live. And I'm looking forward to being there as I have never longed for a place in my life.

I'll leave you today with another favourite quote from C.S. Lewis in "The Weight of Glory:

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you may talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and corruption such as you now meet if at all only in a nightmare. . . There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendours."

xoxox