Hidden and Found, Known and Loved

Just recently, my husband found me hiding in my son’s bedroom, in the small space between his bed and the wall under the window. It was the only place I could gain reprieve after a long, stressful day of homeschooling. (Kudos to you, mamas! Wow at how difficult it is sometimes!)

The kids were playing safely downstairs. I needed a moment to be still and breathe, in a quiet space where the kids might not find me. It was my own personal time out.

My husband came in from work, and he knows me. He knows how I might disappear for a moment of quiet, so he began the hunt. I was still breathing fire, spitting mad, and aching at how this season was turning our life upside down.

When he found me, I did something I never do. I told him every God-awful, ugly, horrible bad thing I was thinking about life, parenting, and any other thing I could come up with at that moment. I am rarely so honest, because it is scary to be so vulnerable and raw with anyone other than Jesus. Venting frustration has rarely ended well for me. However, my husband did something amazing. He listened, which is what I needed.

In the moments after, I thought about how Christ-like he had been to listen, draw me out of hiding, and hold me close. He continued to love me despite all the horrid things I’d just said. No longer did I have to carry them around like baggage too heavy, leveling me onto the floor. I’d been released to freedom.

I’ve never been an easy person to know, or at least I don’t know many people who have deeply known me. I was born in hiding, and only Jesus keeps drawing me out of myself into His marvelous light.

Being an INFJ on the Myers-Brigg personality scale, I readily feel all the feelings of others. Perceiving other’s feelings, including whether he or she likes or dislikes me, sometimes prevents me from allowing myself to be known. At times, it has paralyzed me into hiding. As a child, this translated into being good. I got used to putting on my good girl face all the time. As an adult, I am freer, but Jesus continues to change me and set me free of fear to be fully known and deeply loved.

Until Jesus sought me out of hiding, I was prone to bury myself under layers, but all I really wanted is what all of us want – to be known and loved.

To realize that I’d just spilled every human, awful thing about me without fear of being rejected meant Jesus had done a mighty thing in me. It might have been the first time I’d been my true self without fear of consequence, and with no consequence but love as the offering.

The chains of fear which have kept me from being known fully by man and even by God no longer bound me. It was reminiscent of Father God calling in the Garden – “where are you?”, only I was ready to run to Him instead of stay behind the bush.

I’d given the Father who knew me since before creation permission to truly search me and know me, all my anxious places, all my faults. I’d opened the door for Him to pursue the depths of my heart, so that I could be found known and loved by Him. His constant work in me had set me free to be of all things, me. Even in my wretchedness, He kept shaping me into something more like Him.

I’d been covered by the blood of Christ and hidden in Him to true freedom. I no longer had to hide in the shadows of my weary soul, I could be found under the shelter of His wings.