When I Stopped Hiding My Wrong

A song from Psalm 32

You know the feeling.
The thing you did.
The thing you wish you hadn't.

And you push it down, down,
deep inside,
where you hope nobody can see.

David did that.
David, the king.
He did a wrong, a big one,
and he hid it.
He smiled like everything was fine.
He hoped God wouldn't notice.

But, oh.
A secret like that is heavy.

David said his bones felt old and tired.
He said he groaned all day long.
He felt dried up,
like grass in the burning summer,
like a little stream shrunk to a trickle
when the sun won't stop shining.

Have you ever felt that way?
Heavy and achy
from carrying a secret you didn't want anyone to know?

David carried his a long, long time.

Then one day
he couldn't carry it another step.

So he stopped hiding.
He opened up his hands.
He told God the very thing
he was most ashamed of.
Here it is, he said.
This is the wrong I did.
I won't cover it anymore.

God did not turn away.
God did not frown and step back.
God reached down
and lifted the heavy thing
right off of David's back,
and it was gone.
Forgiven.

David felt so light he could have floated.
He felt clean, the way fresh rain washes everything new.
He felt safe, the way you feel
when someone bigger wraps you in their arms
in the dark
and says, I've got you. You can rest now.

Blessed, David sang.
That was the word he used.
Happy. Blessed. Glad all the way through.
Blessed is the one who stops hiding his wrong
and lets himself be loved.

You are my hiding place, David sang.
Long before, when he was running from an angry king,
David hid in dark caves to stay safe.
Now he had found a better hiding place:
God himself,
wrapping him round with songs of rescue.

And when God lifted that heavy thing off David,
it did not just melt into the air.
Someone, one day, was going to carry it.

Long after David,
Jesus came.
And when Jesus stretched out his arms,
he was reaching
for every heavy secret
every hiding heart had ever pushed down deep.
He gathered them all.
He carried them up a hill.
He carried them away forever.

So now you never have to hide.
Not the thing you did.
Not the thing you wish you hadn't.

You can open your hands.
You can say, here it is.

And God will not turn away.
He will lift it right off of you,
and wrap you up,
and call you blessed,
and you will feel that lightness,
that clean,
that safe.

Then you can sing what David sang,
with a heart as light as a feather on the wind:
You are my hiding place.
You surround me with songs.