Let’s talk about closets!
Did you know that someone began creating closets towards the end of the medieval period? They were intended to be private and even secret rooms where valuable possessions were stored and a person could escape to pray, read, or less virtuously,…contemplate her or his treasures.
You may have memorized Matthew 6:6; “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father who is in secret; and thy Father who seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” Some ladies have closets spacious enough to hold both them and their wardrobe. I, on the other hand, would have to toss everything out in order to enter it! Closets have certainly evolved from the chambers they used to be when King James ruled. That’s why I prefer the Orthodox Jewish Bible’s translation which is “secret place”.
What’s With the Cocoon?
You may be wondering, “So what’s the connection between a closet and my drawing of a cocoon?” Well, one day as I was examining an unusual cocoon, I realized that it too could be considered a “secret place”. After all, it was a retreat where a sluggish caterpillar entered and later emerged as a magnificent butterfly. I promptly looked up the definition of “metamorphosis”. The second meaning caught my eye. It read “to change or cause to change completely in form or nature”. In the natural, it refers to a physical change. From another perspective, our “secret place” with the Lord is where a spiritual metamorphosis takes place!
A Metamorpho….what?
When we’re alone with Him, we can expose our hearts to the one who will never break them. We can share our feelings with the one who understands us even when we don’t understand ourselves. We can express our thoughts and know that He is genuinely interested, whether we’re pondering a hangnail or an algorithm. We can admit when we’ve made a mess of things and know that He will not make us feel any worse than we already do.
We don’t have to pretend around Him. He knows the last time that we cleaned the top of the refrigerator and our last foolish buy. He’s aware of every strand of hair that we color and anything else that we’re hiding in our lives. His address book contains our legal name, nicknames and all other names we may have had.
He replaces the pin hole we’ve been looking through with a telescope when we’re not seeing things clearly. If we’re having a pity party He changes the theme. He puts us on a strict diet when we’re full of ourselves. If we behave badly, He shows us the truth about ourselves with so much love that we crave His correction.
To Quote C.S. Lewis
“I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time- waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God,… it changes me.”
By Sherilyn Rivera
