Tuesday 7 October 2014

That Old Hat

I walked in to the old book store on the sleepy coastal town where we were staying. The wooden bookshelves were old and expensive, much like the books that filled the shelves. I browsed at C.S Lewis books as usual and all the old classics under the classic section that people seem to neglect. My husband browsed at the war books. The owner, a very old man with a angry face chatted loudly to a friend. The grey - haired men seemed highly strung not the typical demeanor one thought books should induce upon a person. As I walked gingerly passed them, I walked in to a section of the store with high rafters where old hats hung on nails close to the ceiling.

I stared up at all of them, suddenly transported in to the twenties. I stared up and noticed a pink frilly hat with a feather on it. I had to have it, why I could not say, but I had to have it. My husband pulled a note from his pocket and we walked over to the old guys. The store owner laughed "an old hat?" He laughed as if to say why would you walk in to a book store and buy an old hat I am over charging you for? I wondered at it myself but smiled instead. As I paid for my purchase I walked out the store and heard him say in disdain to his friend, "an old hat, my only sale today, an old hat."

I put the hat in the cupboard, looked at it once or twice and felt nothing but a slight comfort at the fact that it was there, safe, in the cupboard. Eventually I threw it away.
How much of who we are is like that old hat. People fumble and look down at the things inside of you that you prize or have prized in your past. Someone laughed when they walked passed and said "pfft what a silly girl you are." Your most valued part of you, your most treasured gift and someone said "oh old hat - my only sale today." How much of you has felt like that old hat. So you brought yourself home, the part of you that was beautiful and valuable and you placed it in the cupboard and you felt comfortable about it because no one saw it and everyone likes you for who you are now. You've become "old hat" at being a good representation of yourself, but never "old hat" at being the real you.

That's how life is - it wants everyone to conform. Those who dont want to conform go overboard often and become goths, with loads of piercings, tattoos and crazy jobs. The girls fart, burp and pick their noises while the guys wear make up because being wierd is better then comforming. But Christ called us to higher - He calls us to look up in to the rafters, where the ceiling boards are high up there and recognise our old hats, the ones we hung away because someone (or maybe many!) told us that part of us was not okay, or likeable or wanted, or valuable.

Well, I am here to tell you that all of you is okay - all the parts of you that you have hidden away, because you have gifts you have tucked away and God is saying "come one my beautiful one, come out of hiding!"
It's time for inventory - how many things inside of you have you hidden away? How many gifts and treasures and things you loved - like feeding birds, to walking in the park, or playing the violin or the harmonica or writing poems that make no sense to anyone but you! That is part of your original design and it's so very much part of you! Take stock this week of what God is re-awakening in you.
Because He is walking through that bookstore and He has looked up - take that hat off the shelf and put it on! it's Time!

3 comments:

  1. It's interesting that we would want to hide knowing that we are never hidden from God's sight, isn't it? Thanks for sharing your thoughts! ~Heather @ My Overflowing Cup

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  2. Oh yes, time to come out of hiding, for us to be the real, genuine, authentic selves that God created us to be. Thanks for joining UNITE this week! Jen @ Rich Faith Rising

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    1. Hey Jen! Nice to see you, yip time to come out of hiding and be ourselves. May God richly bless you!

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