In my last post we looked at the problem with being loved but not known. Today let’s consider the opposite: to be known but not loved.
I would argue that our greatest fear in life, even greater than our fear of death, is our fear of being completely and utterly alone.
In 2019 the Tampa Bay Times ran a story about a woman named Kathryn Norris. Her body had been discovered in the home where she had lived. She had been dead for over 16 months. Months earlier she had stopped paying her mortgage, and eventually the mortgage company foreclosed and resold the home. It was the new owner that discovered the body.
Estranged from her family, she had moved to Florida about ten years earlier. Neighbors said their rarely saw her, and hadn’t really noticed that those rare sightings had stopped. She had worked for a while at a local company as a buyer, but health issues made her quit her job. She had been married briefly and after the divorce her ex lost contact with her. Mental health issues led to her being put on disability. There was no immediately apparent cause of death. But one thing was very clear. When she died, she was utterly alone.
The reporter who wrote the story reached out to some former coworkers and members of her distant family. None of them described her as dangerous or even unpleasant to be around. She had just drifted away, and no one cared enough to try and stop it.
I find that story incredibly sad and tragic.
God’s word teaches clearly that we were made for relationship. When Jesus was asked to summarize God’s law (God’s truth about how live is supposed to work), he said it was simple: love God with all your being and love others as you love yourself. We were made for love – to love God and others, and to be loved by them. So Keller is right when he says there is a fear inside of each of us that if people in our lives knew the REAL us – our thoughts, feelings, secret sins and struggles – that no one would love us. We would be rejected and alone.
Faced with that possibility, I will always opt for the superficial. For the comfortable. I’ll let you see a little and hide the rest. I’ll silence the “if they only knew” voice and take what love I can get. I will avoid the risk of rejection at all costs.
I guess I’d rather be loved and not known, than known and not loved. But there is a third option. We will explore that in my next post.