The Greatest Risk

I think there are few things scarier in life than the risk of being vulnerable enough to let someone "know" you. I am not talking about surface level know you, but really know the heart of who, the parts of you that few people ever do know. To be known in that way can reap great rewards, but when people who know you that well walk out of you life it can leave you feeling vulnerable and raw. There are a handful of people in my life that know my in's and out's, and I theirs. Who have looked at the depth of who I am and said, yes I know your flawed and I know you aren't perfect but your worth the risk, and I love you. That is where the greatest love and the greatest risk comes from. Because when your fully known and loved for exactly who you are, in whatever moment or season you are in there is almost no greater joy. I am finding that this is so much of what I am created for, while I know there other things mixed in with that, the Lord is revealing that his heart in being known, is also my heart. As I have walked through various seasons of self image and self confidence issues, the idea of being loved for exactly who I am, brings tears to my eyes. To not have this feeling of needing to be anyone or anything else. But above all else to feel like who I am, however I am, is enough. Through out the years that group of people I was talking about before has changed, some have gone, some have stayed, and as people have left I always find myself in a reflective place of looking back and wondering what caused them to not hold that place in my life anymore. For some I feel it was because time apart got to be to great to continue to make the risk, some because naturally as one grows and matures people grow apart, and some because they looked at the depth of who I was and said, I am not sure your someone I can love or do love. And that is why I call this the greatest risk because when you risk all to know and be known, to love and be loved you take a chance that people will know you for the depths of who you are, and say no thank you. But I am learning that, that is what Christ did for us, he risked everything came here as a human spent his life knowing people and letting them know him only to be crucified  and rejected over and over again, and he is still is taking that risk today. So if I just claimed that much of the Lord's heart and desiring to know and be known, love and be loved, is also my own, and that he risked everything just so one person would know him and love him, then I think its worth the risk. It worth the rejection, tears, and heart break to find the people in your life who do truly know the depth of you and continue to love you through the seasons of life. SO Jesus thank you for risking all to know us and so we could know you, for allowing us to model that through friendships and relationships you place in our lives.