The Woman in the Library

   How well do you know someone?  

  I finished reading The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill last week.  Four strangers are bound together by a scream overheard in a library, and as their lives intertwine, they discover threads connecting their lives previously unknown, all the while striving to know what happened to the woman whose death was accompanied by the scream.  At the end of every chapter, there is correspondence between the author and a reviewer, and it takes a turn for the macabre each and every chapter.

  All of it makes me think about how well we know people.  We choose what we reveal to one another, and our identities in different parts of our life can be very different if we would like.  We display a personality at work that may or may not correspond to the person we are in the evening or on the weekend.  People know part of our story that we tell, and we can omit the painful parts if we like.  But then what do we do when the truth comes out?  Do we recognize that everyone is hiding something?  Or do we run?

  When we come before God, we don't have the chance to hide anything, although I think we'd often like to.  But we are fully known by God.  Thankfully, we're loved in spite of our weaknesses, in spite of our failures... but it's easy to feel embarrassed before God.  We're not perfect.  Often, we're not even close.  Sometimes, I know what Jonah feels like -- we want to run from God, to hop the next ship to Tarshish and start over, or like Moses, to run into the wilderness.

  We discover the futility of running from God.  God is already there, arms open wide, with grace beyond grace.  We are fully known and fully loved.

  May we extend that same grace to one another.  May we not hide our brokenness, but rather let the light shine through the cracks, that others may know the wonders of unconditional love.