Remember this

I posted this quote to the blog some time ago and sooner or later it will drop off the front page.

Because I need to be reminded, I’m giving it a page of its own:

You know what’s so funny and sad about us human beings? . . . We are constantly torn between the all-consuming desire to be loved and the terrifying fear of being known. Deep inside we don’t believe the two things can exist together, that if anyone really knew us, they would surely never love us, so we spend our whole lives concocting this wonderful, plastic shell that we fight like madmen to keep pristine. But eventually the plastic cracks and what is inside is a raw, quivering mass of imperfect humanity that has always been lovely and precious enough for God Himself to love.

–Earlene Fowler, Steps to the Altar*, p. 177.

*Although the title suggests a book about marriage, it is the name of a traditional American quilt pattern, and the book is a crime novel.