St. Matthias

Chosen in Hiddenness

An Attentive Heart Reflection b y Mary Burns

There is a particular ache that comes with feeling unseen.

Not rejected.
Not abandoned.
Just… unnoticed.

The work you do that no one applauds.
The love you give that feels ordinary.
The faithfulness that seems to pass without comment.

It is a quiet ache. Easy to dismiss. Easy to spiritualize. Harder to admit.

And yet, hiddenness is one of God’s favorite places to work.

The Quiet Disciple

Saint Matthias was not originally among the Twelve. The Gospels give him no spotlight scene. He did not preach from the boat or walk on water. There is no recorded miracle, no preserved sermon, no moment where all eyes turn toward him.

He was simply there.

He followed Christ quietly.
He remained when others drifted away.
He stayed faithful without position, title, or recognition.

After Judas’ betrayal, when the apostles needed someone who had been present “from the beginning,” Matthias met the requirement. He had walked the long road of quiet steadfastness.. He showed up when there was nothing to gain from showing up.

And when the moment came, God called his name.

“You did not choose me, but I chose you.” — John 15:16

Obscurity was not absence.
It was preparation.

Learning to Love the Quiet

Following Christ quietly did not come naturally to me.

For years, I had been an athlete. Visible. Measured. Evaluated. Effort was seen. Performance was affirmed. There were scoreboards. Statistics. Applause. Even failure had an audience.

You always knew where you stood.

Then I became a wife. A mother.

And suddenly there were no scoreboards.

After I was married and had children, life was rarely silent. There was always noise — physical noise, emotional noise, mental noise. And when I did notice quiet, I didn’t trust it. I would go searching for my children, convinced that silence meant trouble.

Motherhood felt like the opposite of the spotlight. The work was constant, repetitive, unseen. No one claps for folding laundry. No one keeps statistics on patience. No one announces the small heroic acts of restraint that happen in kitchens and carpool lines.

I longed for quietness. Without it, something in me unraveled — irritation rising faster than it should, resentment surfacing toward the very people I loved most. I wanted peace, but I wanted it to arrive without effort. I wanted interior steadiness without choosing it.

The shift from athlete to mother exposed something in me.

Had I grown accustomed to being seen?

Adult life required something far less glamorous.

It required stepping back. Doing what I was doing — teaching, mothering, praying, serving — not for applause, not for affirmation, but for the greater glory of God.

It required releasing the subtle demand to be noticed.

There is a refinement that happens when you stop chasing affirmation.

When recognition does come, it feels clean. Undemanded. Unforced. You know it is real because you did not go looking for it.

Hiddenness purifies motives. It reveals what we are really working for.

And sometimes, it reveals how much we still crave the spotlight.

The Friend Who Never Announced Herself

One of my closest friends is someone I never formally labeled “best friend.” She never drew attention to herself. Never boasted about loyalty. Never made grand declarations.

She simply showed up.

In the joyful seasons.
In the confusing seasons.
In the stretching, uncomfortable seasons.

She did not compete for visibility. She did not demand acknowledgment. She did not need to be named in order to remain.

She was faithful.

And that kind of presence is rare.

It is also deeply holy.

Makes me realize what an awesome friend and apostle Matthias was to Jesus. 

The Kingdom of God is often built by people who never intended to be impressive — only steadfast.

And perhaps that is the invitation for us, too.

To trade the scoreboard for surrender.
To exchange applause for obedience.
To let our lives be known fully by God — even if they are never widely known by anyone else.

This ordinary life is not a demotion.
It is participation in Christ’s quiet years — the years that formed the Redeemer of the world.

And if those years were not wasted for Him,
they are not wasted for us.