Hide and Go Seek Blog

The rain, gently falling, leaving shadows on the windowpane. Making little noises, only reminding of the world outside the shade. Quite whispers, quite sniffles and a face to match the pain. Mascara blurred, standing witness and mimicking the shadows on the glass. Huddled in the corner she gasps for breath in a world devoid of air. Clenching her knees to her chests, her mind struggles to understand the hurt she feels. She lays her eyes on the bed and wonders if she still feels. She feels unclean but the running water can’t make her clean. All the soap in this world won’t change anything. She feels a thousand eyes starring at her in shame, through the silence all alone. He said he loved her, he was the first one to really care, but now she’s a billboard standing above the city square. No more life, no more hope, her dreams washed away in the shadows. No more color, just a smile posted for all to see. The stage was set, but it seems the act is done, and now it’s all over, but for the memories of what was, and the nothing yet to come. She cries for days, she doesn’t move. She can’t find the strength to make it back to stand. She thinks about her mothers words, she thinks about taking it all. Finding no way to make it back again. She sees a million smiles, but doesn’t feel a single person’s warmth. Unable to find a way to see the sun. Dark days and hopeless thoughts. How does she get back something she didn’t know she lost?

Does it need more explaining? Could an explanation even add to the scene? There are times in life when it seems like the train comes to a screeching stop. Bags go flying, you hit your head. The lights go dim and all you know is that you’re in the middle of nowhere; the wheels have stopped. All hope is gone and you struggle for life, something to get the train going again. It’s in those times when only God can get us back on track. And even then, the memories stop us from getting back on track. The Apostle Paul struggled with it, a lot actually. Even long into his conversion and his ministry, the thoughts of his past come into his mind. He remembers the faces of the people that he tortured and killed, as if it were yesterday. The faces of the crying children, as he dragged their mommy’s and daddy’s away to be executed for the simple faith in Christ that he was now professing himself. What a waste. How on earth could God use him? Most days, he wished that God wouldn’t. How can he look people in the eyes and talk about the love and grace of Jesus, when he brutally murdered so many innocent people for doing the same. The answer is simple. Because he had experienced in himself. It’s obvious that Paul struggled with the memories and guilt of the past. He constantly reminds his churches and Timothy that the old life is behind, and that the new life we live in Christ lives on in our stead. Galatians 2:20 Philippians 3:13 “Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead” No place is this struggle more evident that in 2 Corinthians 12:1-12.

2 Corinthians 12:7-12 “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Satan was using guilt to get to Paul. He saw the man of God that Paul has become, and his obedience in being used, and tried to take him down again. It would have worked if it was for these words: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” In Paul’s struggles, in his disappointing himself with his own actions, God shows him the true source of his power. It was God through it all. I’ve grown up my whole life in the church, as a self proclaiming Christian. I’ve spent the last two years in a comprehensive Christian Educational Institution. That means that not only have the worst things I have ever done happened while I was a reborn believer, but also while in Bible College. How do I move on from that? Paul had a conversion experience that marked, with a huge milestone, the difference between the old life and the new life. He had a ‘before Damascus’ life and an ‘after Damascus’ life. I don’t have anything. I have no excuses to hide behind, the shadow to veil the shame, the guilt or the blame. It’s in realizing that my salvation doesn’t come from within me, from my merit, but from Christ who died to give my life merit. I don’t surprise him. I spend a lot of time wish some things didn’t happen. Times in the summer. Things that have been sworn to secrecy in the band of Brothers. Things that I can’t wash away even if I tried.

Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”

Good Bye Self

, Chad