Secret Passages

First off, let me just start this off with a little quote from one of my favorite writers and I haven't even finished her first book:

"To all the secret writers, late-night painters, would-be singers, lapsed and scared artists of every stripe, dig out your paintbrush, or your flute, or your dancing shoes. Pull out your camera or your computer or your pottery wheel. Today, tonight, after the kids are in bed or when your homework is done, or instead of one more video game or magazine, create something, anything.

Pick up a needle and thread, and stitch together something particular and honest and beautiful, because we need it. I need it.

Thank you, and keep going."

uhh, Hello Shauna Niequiest. Obsessed, truly. I'm pretty sure she just jumped inside my brain and formed every thought I had, plus some, but could never put onto paper.

Anywho, back to other news.

As a child, I always wanted to find a secret door, a secret passage way to an alternate universe. One with more colors, candy, and stuff animals that could even be described. I would crawl as a child under my bed and pop out on the other side, imagining I had made it. I had made it through to my alternate, dream-like, universe; however, I had not even left the premises of my room. I was only standing on the opposite side of my room and looking at it all with new eyes of excitement and wonder.

In my mind, my simple bedroom room had become a world of magic and colors. Everything was brighter, clearer. Even though I don't necessarily crawl under my bed to find my "hidden door" anymore, the precious thought that maybe, someday, I'll find my real secret door haunts my soul and hangs in the back of my mind. It lingers in the back of my still child-like mind, creating in me a longing for an escape to that world.

One day, I'll just venture into my college class or into a coffee shop, and the floor will just open up and swallow me whole. I'll fall and fall and fall, just like Alice in Wonderland, minus all the crazies in the story. (Was I the only one throughly creeped out by that Walrus!?!?) Or maybe, I'll see a little tunnel hidden inside a book in the library and like a vortex, I'll be sucked in, never to return.

But, maybe I'm looking for my secret passage of escape in all the wrong places. Maybe I've been given my "new eyes" to see the world through, and I'm just not utilizing them. Maybe my world full of colors and wonder is not so hidden after all. Maybe...it's all right before my eyes.

What if God, in all His amazing power and wonder, in all His might and majesty, in all His love and mercy, is my secret passage. My secret passage to joy and fulfillment and life and love and laughter and colors and beauty. My Secret Passage has been set before me, but I've been too wrapped in my own world looking for my non-existent faux version, I've missed it all. God offers us to see the world through his eyes. To see joy and excitement and this blend of love, grace, and this beautiful thing called forgiveness that has a magic of its own. To see His fingerprints on every surface of our lives. To see a secret passage way in a rich black cup of coffee. To see a hidden door in a deep and loving conversation. To see a hideaway in laughter and a simple hanging out. To see His goodness in a beautiful sunrise. To see the world through His eyes opens up an entire new world to us, as believers. He is and has invited us into His secret passage that isn't so secret, but we are so finding our own ways of escape, we miss it. We become so consumed with our form of release, rather it be school, friends, or boys or depression or self-images or whatever, we miss what He has invited us into.

So now I look for God. I look for God and His hidden doors. I still look for my hole in the ground, and my vortex in the library, but I know they are going to come in different forms than I normally expect. Everyday life is singed from His touch and the immeasurable beauty of who He is. I just have to use His eyes to find them and see His glory.

May you live every day seeking and finding His secret passages.

And may you life like a lily among the thorns.

Madi Mae