Our Deepest Needs

Norma Jeane Mortenson (later baptized as Norma Jeane Baker) was born in Los Angeles, California, on June 1, 1926.

Unfortunately, she was abandoned by her biological mother, grew up not knowing who her father was, and was later placed with foster parents who had mental problems. Norma spent most of her childhood in an orphanage and several foster homes. Some biographers believe she was a victim of early childhood sexual abuse.

At the tender age of sixteen, she married James Dougherty, who went away to fight in World War II. Those childhood traumas and that life of turmoil left indelible marks on her personality. Documentary photographer David Conover is credited for having discovered Norma as a model, and Ben Lyon arranged a screen test for her with 20th Century Fox. When she was twenty years old, she was given the stage name Marilyn Monroe —Marilyn, after the actress Marilyn Miller, and Monroe, her biological mother’s maiden name. Over the years, Marilyn Monroe built an extremely successful career as a Hollywood sex symbol and movie star. But on the morning of August 5, 1962, she was found dead in her Los Angeles home, apparently due to a drug overdose.

Monroe’s life confirmed the undeniable reality that physical beauty and public notoriety cannot meet our deep emotional and existential needs.

In 1951, Monroe wrote in one of her notebooks, “Alone!!!!! I am alone —I am always alone, no matter what.”1 In his poem “Mal Secreto” (Secret evil), Raimundo Correia suggests that if we could see through the mask of the face the “pain that dwells in man’s soul and destroys all dreams,” perhaps “so many people who now make us envious, would then move us to pity!”2 The truth is that many human hearts are bleeding from moral and social wounds that refuse to heal. The preface to Ellen White’s The Desire of Ages speaks of the “inexpressible longings” of every human heart that cannot “be satisfied by pleasure, by wealth, by ease, by fame, [or] by power.” Those longings come from God to lead us to Jesus Christ, who alone can bring real meaning to our lives.

If your past still hurts, your present is unstable, and your future is uncertain, surrender your life to Jesus and allow Him to take care of all your burdens.