the great know-er.

The joy of being known.

If I were talking with you, I'd whisper that. In wonder. And then say it. And then say it a little louder, and then look at you incredulously, like, "Don't you get it?!?"

The joy of being known.

You probably get it. I had not, until today.

I was talking with God this morning about how hard it is for me to understand Him, and what He is, and what He does. And I was saying that I feel so alone without my friends and my family, but the reality of course is that no one is absolutely known by another person, because we exist so subjectively, and...

The Great Know-er. Mid-sentence that phrase smacked me upside the head.

It's kind of dramatic, I know. Maybe silly. But totally true. He is "The Great Knower." No one, not even a husband with whom we've been intimate for a half-century, can know us in the way that God does.

I've been so sad here, feeling unknown. "I just want to feel known for awhile," I've tossed off in conversations. Meaning that I want to be around people who are more like me. But even the people I'm closest to stand on the other side of a fault line. They don't understand my faith, or my politics, or my humor, or all of the little secrets of my thoughts and wants. It has been easy to imagine, so far away from home, that if only I were home--I'd feel known.

That's not true. I know me. But even I discover new things about me. God, and God alone, knows me. And, what's wonderful about the situation is that the need to be known is itself a sort of proof for Him. He wants me to want to be known by Him. The Creator of me, of every secret I harbor, of all that I am, created me with a desire to be known that only He can fill.

What beauty.

To understand in heart something I had only known in mind is an incredible gift on a Monday. Or a Tuesday, come to that.