I hope this is good news for all who are reading this. God knows us in the most intimate way, and loves us. This awareness is the basic condition for starting off on the inward journey, a journey we must all make if we are to grow.

Thomas Merton wrote, "Our real journey in life is interior: it is a matter of growth, deepening, and of an ever greater surrender to the creative action of love and grace in our hearts." The inner journey, getting to know ourselves is, I believe, a journey toward God. It is neither easy nor comfortable but it is the key to living authentically. 

In her excellent book A Seven Day Journey with Thomas Merton, Esther de Waal writes: "We all have a journey to make into that true self, the person God wants us to be, wills us to become." She then quotes Merton:

To work out my own identity in God, which the Bible calls "working out our salvation," is a labour that requires sacrifice and anguish, risk and many tears. I do not know clearly beforehand what the result of this work will be, the secret of my full identity is hidden in Him. He alone can make me who I am, rather who I will be when at last I fully begin to be.