Hiding.

Maybe I'll write about the hiding I've done someday.  Maybe I'll wipe dust from the front covers of stories I've retired in the distant bookshelves of my heart and eventually lay it all out.  Maybe.

But for now, I simply offer this story of a young woman who feels like she is waking up and coming out of hiding with a heart paralyzed by fear.  I simply offer this story of a young woman who became so comfortable standing still that her bones ached and her faith trembled when she was finally urged to move forward.

And it all makes sense now, looking back, that God would usher me into a season of stillness when He did.  It felt like a death sentence at the time, but God knew what I needed.

I had just graduated high school.  I had just moved to a different state.  I was just getting out of a whirlwind romance I had no business being in because I wasn't healed from the relationship before that.  I was a hot mess and I was going to power through it all, not thinking or caring about the damage I could do.

So when God told me to stand still, it wasn't to punish me like I always bitterly assumed.  It was to restore me.  He called me into a season of stillness because He knew that if I didn't take the time to know Him and love Him and trust His heart for me, I was only going to crash and burn.

And the only way He could slow me down long enough to get my attention, the only way He could really grab my heart and do a good work within it, was to bring me to a standstill.  

It wasn't a death sentence.

It wasn't a punishment.

It wasn't a restriction.

It was love.

It's that same love that calls me to movement, that lets me know my time of standing still is slowly coming to a close. 

And I'm scared.

The same stillness that I've claimed to detest over the years has become a safe, comfortable home for me.  And now, after all of this time, I am to move again.

But what if I can't?  What if I don't remember how?  What if I move wrong?  You can't move wrong if you're still.  I like still.  Still is good.  Still is safe.  Still is my thing.

But God shakes His head and tells me no.  That season is closing and I must follow Him into whatever He leads me to next.  Because friends?  You can stand still in the shallow end, but standing still in deep waters will cause you to drown. 

Ecclesiastes 3 tells me there is a time for everything and, now more than ever, I believe that to be true.

God has always known what I needed.  He knew I needed a season of stillness to prepare me for the deep end I have so desperately and fearfully longed to occupy.

I'm coming out of hiding.

And it's scary and uncomfortable and pleasing to the spirit, but torture to this flesh.  But it feels a lot like taking the hand of my Heavenly Father as He tenderly leads these aching bones and this trembling heart to deep waters.  Waters of action, of movement, of faith.

Waters of trusting Him, no matter the season of life.