To the Woman Who Feels Unknown
Have you longed, year after year, for someone to squeeze your hand, meet your eyes, and say “I know”?
In dreams, that someone says, “I know your heart because I’ve studied it. I’ve memorized it like a folk song I learned in my youth, a timeless tune that will never fade. It paces my steps and warms my frame on chilly autumn days. I’ve memorized the scents and sounds of your childhood: the campfire smoke, the languageless laughter, on the starry nights in the foreign land where you realized what you were made for. I’ve memorized each word poured from your heart on the page, inky tears of hope and tenacity. Yours is an ancient, young heart that has captivated mine.”
“Being fully known yet fully loved is a lot like being loved by God.”
Dear sister, what is the story you’ve longed for someone to know and love and memorize? The story (the you) that is always lost in translation or simply ignored?
Human language mutes the color of what you’ve lived; words carry meaning in a leaking bucket. People pass by in droves, distracting themselves, running from reflection. They can’t hold your story when they don’t stop to know their own.
But let me remind you and remind myself that our Lord is beyond language — nothing is lost in translation with Him. He doesn’t need an interpreter of your heart, because He created it.
Let me remind you and remind myself what Keller said: Being fully known yet fully loved is a lot like being loved by God. The problem is I’ve chased the simile, the “like” more than the love Himself. I’ve spent years waving my arms, begging “Pick me! know me! love me!”
Let me remind you and remind myself that though the longing remains (and will remain) for a human to pursue our heart, study our story, delight in us, we already have One who does.
One day very soon, we will know Him clearly, vividly, joyfully. Dear sister, we will know, even as we are fully known.
