Being Known

I once dated a guy named Allie, or maybe it was Ollie.

Needless to say, it was a short lived romance.  We met outside a pub in London, exchanged numbers, and the rest, as they say, was history.  Allie, we will call him, was a nice enough gentleman but our attempts at finding commonality and middle ground grew tiring. Before it really began, the relationship dissolved before our very eyes.

I think I knew it early on, the disjoint between us, but I wanted to hold on to the hope of something.  Anything.  It wasn’t like I masqueraded. Like a game of go-fish, I held my cards and offered glimmers of me as I waited for him to reveal the match. But he had a different hand of cards.  Or perhaps he was playing a different game all together.

Somehow with Allie, I became known as “the volleyball girl”.  I was introduced to friends this way, and many of our conversations revolved around upcoming practices and games.  It was the one thing he held on to understand me.  To better know me.

The thing is I hadn’t played volleyball for 15 years prior to meeting him and had just recently begun practicing with a team in the city.  In the grand scheme of things, on the measuring tape of life, volleyball was about .001/1000 of who I was. But, to Allie, it was my identity.  I felt like I should bring cross trainers and knee pads to our coffee dates.  It was like a bad Seinfeld episode.  We couldn’t seem to get past that.  Or, he couldn’t seem to see more of me or connect with more of me than that one small detail.  He couldn’t seem to get to know me.  And perhaps I couldn’t seem to get to know him.

We all want to be known intimately, don’t we?  We want people to understand and “get” us and when they don’t, there is nothing more isolating and lonely. 

I find that the times that I am the loneliest in life is when I prevent myself from truly being known by others. 

Because it requires work. 

And it takes time. 

And it means intimacy.

Which brings vulnerability. 

And sometimes, to be honest, it’s a whole lot easier to just stick to shallow waters.  It is safer there.  But the water is murkier and rockier and the depth, or lack of depth, prevents us from really being able to dive in and swim with freedom. And we all want that freedom with one another.  The freedom to be ourselves.

My girl friend Nina and I can communicate in code.  We’ve mastered the ability to have a full fledged conversation in the company of others in almost an entirely new language.  From an outsider’s perspective, we are talking in numbers and strange abbreviations and acronyms, but in our world we are able to get to the bottom of where the other is at that week and what has happened in the others’ life.  I’m blessed beyond measure to have this type of friendship. This sisterhood that carries itself across oceans, changes, wrinkles, babies, and years.  In it, I am known and she is known and the beauty is not in what we do, or what we share, but the safety and security in the knowing.

Are you known?

Truly, unabashedly known by another? Or have you been hiding your face? Are you accepting a role someone else has put you in that is only a small part of who God really designed and created you to be? Because you know, He wants you to venture out past the murky shallow waters and be free in who He’s called you to be.  And He tells you that you are known.  Intimately known by him despite the roles you’ve played, or the masks you wear, or what you hide behind.  He sees you. 

You, my friend, are known.

Isaiah 43: 1-4…Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you.  I have called you by name; you are mine.  When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you…..Others died that you might live.  I traded their lives for yours because you are precious to me.  You are honored and I love you.

 (*picture by Charlie Mackesy)