Fully Known… and Fully Loved.

Over the course of his life my dad solved hundreds of crimes.  He was a forensics expert and a brilliant investigator.  His job was to piece together the identity of the criminal – identifying the one who committed the crime without ever meeting them.  For my dad clues were simply pieces of an identity.  From simple clues he could learn extraordinary details about a person’s life.  In every case there was a very important element of philosophical truth that made it possible for him to do his job.  It is simply this – no two people possess the same identity and everyone wants their identity to be known.  Of course no criminal ever wanted my dad to know theiridentity, but an overall desire to be know by someone, ultimately made it impossible for them to hide.

I believe that at the end of the day we all want one thing more than anything else in the whole world.  I believe that deep within each of us is a longing, a longing to be known, fully known, and still loved.  It is here, when we are fully known and fully loved that we experience true joy and fulfillment.  I’m not talking about being famous or popular, though sometimes this is the result of our efforts to fill the desire. I’m talking about knowing for ourselves that who we are matters to someone, that our identity means something, and when the messiness of our identity is fully exposed, we are still loved by the one who sees us for who we truly are.

We do some bizarre things in the pursuit of being known.  We go to great lengths to alter our identities so that people will notice us; perhaps, it is as simple as looking good for the guy at the bar or working hard to gain the attention of our boss at work.  For some of us this desire runs much deeper.  Some of us have been working at this our entire lives because our mom or dad didn’t know how, or didn’t have the time, to give us the attention and affirmation we needed.  No matter whom we are longing to be known by, we all love to hear simple words – “I’m proud of you,” “you are beautiful,” “I believe you can,” “I love you”.

At Elements we know that words are not enough to fill our passion to be known and loved.  However, we know that open communication is crucial as we discover why we want to be known and whom it is we long to be known by.  Elements desires to facilitate conversations the essence of who we are, and how we can experience the joy that comes from being fully known and fully loved at the same time….

by: Josh Knight