HIDE

This post was written for Five Minute Friday

Word prompt--HIDE

Five minutes to free write about it

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There was a time in my life when I tried to hide many things. Now not so much. One of the benefits of growing old is that I no longer feel the need to impress anybody or worry about what they might think of me. I am who I am, and the only person whose opinion matters, is that of the God who created me and who knows my heart.

When I became a Christian, some 30 years ago, I kept hidden the fact that I had once been deeply steeped in New Age and occult practices, and that I had authored a book (actually more than one) on numerology. And then one Palm Sunday, our pastor challenged us to do something radical, and I did. I wrote a blog post entitled Sincerely Wrong, in which I spoke openly about these things for the very first time.

After writing that post, I became convicted that it was time to bring all the other things I didn't talk about into the open as well because, just mabe, there was someone out there who desperately needed to hear it.

I had always believed that the reason I kept certain things hidden, especially from my mother, children, and other family members, was because I was trying to protect them from being hurt, but now I realized that was only partly true. I did want to keep them from unnecessary distress, but if truth be told, the greater reason was fear of what they might think of me. And so I went on to write my memoir, Sincerely Wrong: An Improbable Journey. 

Writing the book was not an easy thing to do, because in order to give the whole story, I had to share things that I had never spoken about before. What I learned through the process though, is that hidden things have a way of eventually being exposed anyway, and when you are the one to bring them out into the open, they lose their power over you.

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For everything that is hidden will eventually

be brought out into the open, and every

secret will be brought to light.

(Mark 4:22 NLT)

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