Oftentimes, death is much more commonplace in non-Western countries. Still, it’s ugliness rips color from our world, gripping hearts with fear. When death appeared for the first time in my early childhood, God used it to begin teaching me what it meant to be known or unknown. A woman jumped to her death from a skyscraper far above my family’s first floor flat in southeast Asia. Buildings closed in tight, and the victim’s body lay just below our window. When my brothers and I walked to and from school that day, we were very much aware of what had happened. It was a strange feeling knowing someone had fallen and was forever crushed and gone. People hung clothes out to dry on bamboo sticks back then in my neighborhood. Sometimes items fell. People weren’t supposed to tumble out from those heights. I learned much later on that suicide in this manner was the leading method for women in those days.  

Even as a small child, God used that in my life to shape my views. I was known to my parents, siblings, friends, etcetera, but most of all to my Creator. The dead lady was unknown to us, one of her many thousands of neighbors in that corner of the city, but not to God. He’d made her in His own image. We went about our life, while she stood before her Maker. Her soul and eternity were known personally to Him.  

When we realize we are deeply known and loved by our Lord and Savior, we find comfort. His abiding love casts out fear. Our lives must represent that security in every far-off corner of this world we each traverse. We read about how the Lord sets us before His face, how He ponders the path of our feet, knows when we sit and rise up. The sum of His thoughts is great and precious toward His own. (Psalm 41:12, Prov. 5:21, Psalm 139)