Why Christian Women Hide What Hurts the Most

The first thing humans did when they were ashamed was hide.

Genesis 3. Adam and Eve, fresh off the only sin in human history that didn't have a precedent to learn from, didn't run toward God. They ran behind a tree. They stitched together fig leaves. They made a covering.

I've been making fig leaves my whole life. So have most of the Christian women I know. We hide the drinking that started as a glass with dinner and now needs to happen before anyone gets home. We hide the anxiety that's eating us alive on Sunday morning while we're singing about peace. We hide the marriage that isn't what we let people think it is.We hide the rage we feel toward our kids on the bad days. We hide the credit card debt, the eating disorder, the affair we had ten years ago that no one knows about, the prescription we don't actually need but can't stop refilling.

And here's the part that wrecks me: we hide it from each other in church, of all places. The one room on earth that's supposed to be safe for the broken.

Why We Hide

Christian women hide for specific reasons that other women don't have to wrestle with quite the same way.

We hide because we've been platformed. Someone made us a small group leader, a worship volunteer, a deacon's wife, a women's ministry coordinator — and we figured out fast that the platform comes with conditions. Nobody says it out loud, but everybody knows: leaders don't have problems. Leaders help with problems.

We hide because we've watched what happens to women who don't. We've seen the way a confession in Bible study becomes prayer-request gossip by Tuesday. We've watched a woman get quietly removed from a serving role after she shared too much. We learned. We adjusted. We performed.

We hide because our theology is bad. Somewhere along the way we picked up the idea that real Christians don't struggle — at least not with the embarrassing struggles. We can confess pride. We cannot confess porn. We can confess "people-pleasing." We cannot confess that we hate our husband some days.

What Hiding Costs

Hiding is exhausting. It is also, spiritually, the thing that keeps you from the very grace you say you believe in.

You cannot receive grace for a sin you won't name. You cannot be loved in the place you refuse to be seen. You cannot heal what you keep covered.

I wrote Things We Hide because at some point I realized I had become a woman with a whole filing cabinet of fig leaves. Polished. Capable. Respected. And on the inside? Lonelier than I knew how to admit, even to God.

What Scripture Actually Says

Read Genesis 3 again. After Adam and Eve hide, what does God do?

He goes looking for them.

He doesn't shout from the throne room. He walks in the garden in the cool of the day, and He calls out — Where are you? — even though He already knows. He gives them a chance to come out from behind the tree on their own.

That's the God you're hiding from. Not the angry God your shame invented. The walking-in-the-garden God who is calling your name, gently, in the cool of the day.

1 John 1:9 says if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us — and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Not most. All. The ones you've named and the ones you haven't.

One Step Out

You don't have to start with a public confession. You don't have to post anything on Instagram. You don't have to tell your husband everything tonight.

You just have to tell one safe person one true thing.

That's where it starts. One safe person. One true sentence. The fig leaf slips a little. The grace gets through.

Your mess doesn't scare God. He's been walking in the garden the whole time, looking for you.