Into the Light

"Whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light and whatever you have whispered behind closed doors will be shouted from the housetops for all to hear."

-Luke 12:3

My initial reaction to this verse is that I shouldn't say anything negative about others.  Gossip is a practice that I strive to not engage in, so that tends to be my focus when I read verses such as these.  In general, we always interpret verses in a way that relates to our greatest focus.  Because of this, my initial interpretation is negative thoughts.  Ironically though, my recent focus on the positive brought about a new side of this verse that I haven't addressed before (enter the beauty of Bible verses).  

Whatever positive we say, whatever praises we pray, whatever love we embrace, so will come to light.  Often times we get caught up in the immediate gratification of affirmation.  There is nothing wrong with affirmation, until that becomes our sole motivation.  If we are living off of affirmations all the time, we begin to have an inconsistent life because there is no motivation to live true in the shadows as well as the light.  

A perfect example of this are those people that have closet addictions.  We have all heard of them, they sit in their house late at night and engage in their secret alone.  All their friends worry about them, because their behavior seems odd.  I will admit that at the beginning of our marriage I fought the fear of being considered lazy.  It wasn't so much being lazy that I was afraid of, but being seen that way.  Right after we got married, we moved to Washington State and I didn't have a job yet.  While Marcus was away at work, I would do chores around the house and run out of things to do, so I would sit down and watch T.V.  He had a rather noisy car back then and when I heard him pull in, I would quick flip off the T.V. and act busy.  Ridiculous, right?  To this day I still have the urge to do this.  The funny thing is that he has voiced the fact that I could sit around the house doing nothing all day long and his love wouldn't change.  (Take a good look, ladies... Quality man right there.)  I am happy to say I take this as a reason to work harder, not less.  I digress.  

My point is that as much as I wanted to keep my lack of work secret, it didn't matter to the one I was trying to impress.  Sometimes we go to so much work to conceal something that only matters to the insecurities looking at you in the mirror everyday.  If I spent as much time on enhancing the beauties in my life as I did concealing the secrets, I would be twice as far as I am today.  And the kicker is that I am a goodie-two-shoes and don't have much to conceal other than insecure fears!  Stop hiding, stop waiting, start showing.  The more we are real, the more beautiful life will be and the more of an opportunity you will have to realize how great you are.