hiding and seeking as in accepting and forgetting...

I'll tell you a story that happened to me as a 12 year -old boy. At that time, I enjoyed playing hide-and-seek.
The problem was I suffered from skin allegies brought about by dust and wind exposure. So, even if I wanted to play with my buddies, I couldn't do so to my heart's desire because the exhaustion from running and the effort would bring me to hyperventilate and an outburst of skin bumps and red rashes.

So whenever I am fully relaxed and the climate is still with no dust in the wind, I would sneak in a game of hide and seek with one of my nephews of my age. I would always cheat, so he would always become the "it". I guess he handed me the privilege because I was the uncle and he was the nephew.

One day, while we were playing the game, I hid under the bed. The place under was dusty and filled with cobwebs.I knew I shouldn't be there but I didn't want my nephew to find me because I did not want to be the "it". After awhile, my mother came along and saw me hiding under the bed. She yelled at me, "Why are you there? Get out of there, you might end up getting rashes and shortness of breath again." I replied, sshhhhh, "don't make noise. I am hiding here. Nestor might find out I'm here." My mother asked, "Why will he look for you?" "We're playing hide and seek," I replied. "But Nestor left already." She told me. She laughed, but then i couldn't find amusement in the situation. Instead I cried. That was the last time I played hide and seek with Nestor.

My mother noticed that I was not playing the game anymore. She told me, "when you play hide and seek and no one looked for you, you felt bad and cried. Do you realize God also expects to be found by you even if God realizes that you have gone in search of the less fortunate ones?" She continued, "Actually, God is no longer hiding. God is already in front of you, yet you still look to the other direction because you refuse to accept God. If you were hurt, if you felt bad and you were upset because Nestor did not look for you when you had expected him to be looking for you, then can you just imagine how painful it must have been for the Lord when we accepted Him and then forgot about Him."

Maybe, now we can say to God: "Pardon us Lord for not making you the top priority. Forgive us Lord for accepting You and then forgetting all about You."