As we prepare to meet new students signing up for GPS Tulsa, and as this journey is taking me into conversations with new people and new friendships.  I am reminded of how much I enjoy getting to know people.  Each person (including you, Mr/Miss Blog Reader!) has such value and every story is interesting.  You are the only one of you, ever.  On a deeper level, as relational beings- we each long to be known.  So while I love enjoying new relationships, there are a few that have deepened over time in which I where I know my friend, and they know me.  I hear a song during the day, and I can text the title of the song to my friend.  My friend knows what I’m thinking and shoots back.  They get my jokes, and know my failures.  They accept me and enjoy me.    There are a few friends like this in my life who remind me through their love that I am known and that I am loved.  With their help, they have helped move me to a deeper truth where (in the words of Brennan Manning) I have accepted the fact that I am accepted.  As image bearers, we long to be known and when we’re not sure this is true, we live lost.

I want to remind you today that you are known, and you are not alone.  You are, in fact, completely known and people can give us a “dim reflection” of this beautiful truth that is much bigger than you or I.  Don Chaffer writes some straight forward words about his experience in the ground breaking solo work “You were at the time for love.”

And I used to bathe in tears at night

Cause I felt like I was on my own

I used to think I would never be

Completely known

I used to hold on tightly

To the sorrows that I owned

But they were all I knew

They had run me through

And they had left me

All alone

I used to pray every day

That God would mend what’s torn

Now I see the only way is to die…

To die…

And be reborn

I have finally found a way to live

In the presence of the Lord

- Don Chaffer “Completely Known”

Being known by another human being is a gift, its rare these days, more rare in our culture, and it resonates with our deepest image bearing self.

What do you think?