I can’t tell you how many times I’ve hidden in bathrooms during baby showers. Or all those times I went to the bathroom at work and realized it wasn’t “the month.” Or the times after treatment cycles I’d throw another negative stick in the trash.
Lately, it hasn’t been in the bathroom I’ve wanted to hide. It’s been in conversations. It seems like everyone else’s life has just moved on and after the disappointment we’ve faced the last several months, it’s hard to continue in conversation like nothing ever happened.
I’ve walked through so much healing this year and I now know how important it is to face pain head on rather than hiding or stuffing it. But my gut instinct is to still hide. Isn’t that the first thing Adam and Eve did? Hiding isn’t always the best thing to do. We normally have a bad connotation attached with hiding. Hiding isn’t all bad. It’s what or Who we’re hiding in.
The Father has talked with me so much this year about what it looks like to hide in Him. Colossians 3:3 says, “We are hidden in Christ Jesus.” The Greek word there for hidden means to conceal protectively just like the language in Psalm 91:1 where those that dwell in the shadow of His wings are hidden in His strength. He covers us with His feathers like a mama bird covers her babies.
When I first read this verse in Hebrews, my heart nearly burst. Because in the midst of disappointment, loss, and pain, hiding is exactly what I feel like doing. And the safest most secure place for me to hide is running into his heart, hiding in His faithfulness! Not hiding out of shame or offense, but hiding in His faithfulness, trusting in His character that He will do what He says He will do. And that actually His very presence, hiding in His heart, is the whole point.
Friend, you don’t have to hide in bathrooms any longer. Just run into your Father’s heart, and hide, tucked away in His faithfulness.