Sometimes we're like hermit crabs. We have had a shell covering our most vulnerable areas, a shell that has out-lived its usefulness. It was once a perfect fit, and we felt safe with it on. But now we have outgrown it, and it chafes. We must leave it behind, and find a new one, a better-fitting one.

We often take on external things, ideas, thoughts, habits, to protect us in our most vulnerable areas. If we are prone to fear, we may take on bravado, or perhaps never take any risks. If we have been exposed to a series of failures, we tell ourselves we must be really bad at well, everything. If we have been deeply hurt, we cover ourselves with a veneer of hardness, a shell that is foreign to our nature, just to survive. We shut up our vulnerability in a secret place, away from danger. Just like with the hermit crab, the shell allows us to keep going, without as much risk of getting injured as we go.

But like the crab, we are growing all the time. And the time inevitably comes, one day, when we have grown beyond our little acquired shell. Now we must face the prospect of a period of danger, as we step back out into the world without a shell, until we can find a new one. And we can't stay where we have been, no matter how much we want to. We certainly can't hold onto the past. No, it's time for a new way.

So we have to open up. To move. We have to leave the place we considered safe. Every day the shell we have trusted for so long is getting tighter and tighter. It is becoming a prison. We no longer have a choice; as terrifying as the prospect is, we must venture out.

Psa 32:3 When I kept silence, my bones became old through my roaring all the day long.

Psa 32:4 For by day and by night Your hand was heavy on me; my sap is turned into the droughts of summer. Selah.

Psa 32:5 I confessed my sin to You, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, I will confess my transgression to Jehovah; and You forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah. (MKJV)

It's a funny thing: trouble ignored is not trouble solved. The verses above speak of sin, but they are true of anything in our lives that we don't want to face. Unconfessed sin, pain, anger, sadness- any bad thing, in fact, that is hidden, that is not exposed to the light- saps one of strength. We need all our emotional energy to keep it in that hidden place, keep it under control, prevent it from exposing us to further hurt and shame. And that, in time, can sap one of the will to do other things: to succeed, to get up in the morning, to smile. Holding back these things can sap one of the drive, the strength, the will to live.

Sometimes all that is required is to simply lay it bare before the Lord. Sometimes that's all one has the strength to do. Be assured, though: that is enough. Verse 1 says

Psa 32:1 Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. (MKJV)

I read something like this a long time ago, something attributed to St Augustine (some of it I don't recall anymore):

Let the LORD cover thy wound; do not thou. For in thy covering the wound is concealed; in His covering, the wound is healed. (Have yet to find the correct text and reference- if anyone can help, please do)

It is fearful, yes, to face change, especially when the change is in the area of our deepest emotions, or long-held beliefs. But when it is in an area where we have experienced pain, and hidden it- then the only recourse is to make ourselves vulnerable. Only in our exposing it can something be done about the wound. A hidden wound remains hidden from help. The Lord is waiting to heal; what our part is, is to let go of our own inadequate means of protection, and allow Him to.

Isa 53:4 Surely He has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

Isa 53:5 But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was on Him; and with His stripes we ourselves are healed. (MKJV)

Who better to understand?