So let’s admit it: we are afraid because bad things have happened in our past, and everything in us shudders at ever being hurt again. Life’s all about negotiating risk, we say, and so we bravely sanctify our fears with strategies to hide the dread that we might end unloved and all alone.

But Jesus says, “My grace is enough for you” (2 Cor. 12:9, CEB)—enough for all our hidden wounds and public failures, enough for all the times when we’ve concluded that we can be either well-loved OR well-known, but never both.