What’s a hidey hole??
According to the dictionary: a place for hiding something, or oneself, especially as a retreat from other people.
A hidey hole has positives and negatives, and there are times when we need one–times when we need aloneness. One of those times is for prayer. Of course, we can pray anywhere, even in the middle of a noisy crowd, but solitude is a requirement for most of us when making prayerful decisions about our life in a conversation with God, who loves us and will lead us, if we let Him.
But sometimes our very private hidey holes are breeched by other people who want to destroy our convictions and closely held beliefs. These people crowd around us, increasing their loud cacophony to distract us from our deeper self. The sound of their voices keeps some of us from hearing our own inner voice, while the breath from their mouths attempts to blow out the personal candles of our once-enlightened soul.
We are lured by a false connection to these people we don’t even personally know–and who surely don’t care a thing about us. These people are haughty and proud, big-screen personalities out for themselves. Yet, we let them tell us who, or what, we ought to be.
At first they come at us to question our appearance:
We ought to be thinner.
We ought to dress like them.
Then they come at us touting their own actions:
We ought to sing their way, or dance their way, or go on their Survival trips.
Finally, they come for our thoughts:
We ought to tolerate whatever they say we should tolerate, no matter if it goes against the grain of what we know is right. We ought to silence our own thoughts and take up theirs. And on and on, until we’re not thinking for ourselves, at all.
Except inside us, in our tiny hidey hole, lies our conscience–a still, small voice that will speak to us if we let it. A voice that comes from the wonderful gift of free will–the opportunity to think and act for ourselves.
Do we realize how much we lose by not listening to the voice within us?
Do we realize how much we miss by not trusting in ourselves?
Don’t miss the opportunity to become who YOU are, not who THEY are.
Never give up your own, valuable hidey hole–that quiet place within you that nourishes and strengthens your spiritual convictions.
Translating a World on the Edge 