Hide or Seek

Happy New Year!

So after a jolly Monday, I settled in New Year's night to write my resolutions. I thought I'd write 7 resolutions since it's 2007. Ten resolutions seemed too many, but 5 seemed too few. Anyway, I sat. And sat. Well, okay... obviously eating fewer carbs would go on there somewhere. I wrote it down. Oh! Also this year, I must be Super Adventure Girl. (I should be riding camels and swinging off ropes into murky ponds -see right - and backpacking through Europe. Duh!) Hmm... how to phrase that? I sat some more. Finally I gave up.

Did you write any resolutions this year??

Anyway, I did end up jotting down 7 resolutions - and framing them - before drifting off to Neverland. And as I looked down my list, I caught a theme. Geez, it was so obvious! I suddenly had a theme for my new year. It is...

...well. Wait. Remember hide and seek?

Remember that game we played ages and ages ago? You know, when we still had the time and energy to play? You would hide while I would count before yelling "READY OR NOT! HERE I COME!!!" (And admit it. If you were the seeker, you peeked, didn't you?) Ah, yes. Hide and seek. Remember it?

Yep, as I was reading my resolutions, the following realization reached up from the page and slapped me alongside the jaw: This year, I'll be a seeker.

I feel like I've wasted the majority of my 20s. What is it about this decade that is so difficult and unsettling? I mean, sure, I got an education. And a job. I even landed a lucrative career after trying my dream one on for size for 5 years. Still, though... still... it feels useless, somehow. Like I have little to show for it. So this year, I want that to change. But... how?

Silly resolutions. I started digging around. Since I have yet to come across a book that delivers a total turn-around how-to, I thought of other people I knew who'd gracefully made something of themselves. Hmm, I thought, thinking of one girl in particular. Maybe I should try it her way. But my circumstances are so different than hers. That wouldn't do.

After tossing aside several blah-blah books about being wonderful, out came the Bible. I thought I would start in Genesis, "in the beginning", what with the new year and all. And what do you know... I stumbled across the story of Rebekah. She was going through some hard times and needed a little help. So what did she do? She said, "If it is so, why then am I this way?" And she went to inquire of the Lord. (Genesis 25:22)

Omgosh. It was so simple. If she could seek out God, why couldn't I? If it was enough to see Rebekah through her life, why wouldn't it be enough for me?

So I decided right then. I decided that there are basically two kinds of Christians. There are the hiders, and there are the seekers. I've spent most of my 20s being a hider... ducking around and concealing myself... my convictions... my position, praying one moment that God will notice me and hoping the next that He won't. Depended on the day. No wonder I've felt so lost in a foolish game. Everyone knows it's the seekers who win! Not the hiders. It's the seekers who find what they're after.

Besides, new year's resolutions or not, my 20s... this game we call "life"... will someday come to an end. And ready or not, here He'll come.

Ah, yes. Silly old new year's resolutions. Although I now have 7, including eating fewer carbs and being Super Adventure Girl, there's one that trumps them all: seek God. Seek, seek, seek. And at the end of 2007 - at the end of it all - what could be more worthwhile?

Ask, and it shall be given you; SEEK, AND YE SHALL FIND; Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. -Matthew 7:7