Tell Me the Dream Again: Healing and Wholeness After Hiding Näide

At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.

Genesis 3:7, nlt

Can you remember a time when your eyes were opened to something and it felt like the whole world changed—not in a good way?

I remember the first time a friend said something to me about how jeans were supposed to look. In a matter of seconds, I became self-conscious of my preteen body in a way I hadn’t been before. I remember how I never thought twice about the food my mom made—how it looked or the scent it carried—until someone turned their nose up and said, “Ewwwww” about what I’d seen as love just moments prior.

Think about the things you’ve decided to cover up. Maybe it’s your quick-to-anger responses at home, the face that stares back at you in the bathroom mirror, your sadness, your inevitable aging, or the ethnic parts of you that don’t seem to fit in the social circles and systems you find yourself in. Whether it’s downplaying, wearing more makeup, putting on a cheerful face, making a joke before someone else does, or choosing the death of cultural assimilation, it’s all a form of hiding and covering.

Where have you sewn your own fig leaves?

Who told you to hide?

Why would a God of perfect love make your body as it is, your tastebuds as they are, and your family heritage as colorful and uncommon as it may feel?