Taken.

Loving yourself is hard. It feels impossible some days. And it's especially difficult when we live in a world that gives us 10,000 reasons to not. Daily, we are surrounded by voices that speak to us - and most not positively. Voices that point out our flaws, and show us everything we need to do to be deserving of love. Except when we finally make all those changes, new problems are unlocked. It's an endless cycle of us trying to better and better ourselves - better us into perfection, into being worthy of love, into being accepted. It's exhausting. It leads to dissatisfaction, burnout, and death. And yet, if you listen closely - there's a whisper in all those voices, calling out, calling you Beloved. In Henri Nouwen's book, Life of the Beloved, Henri helps us to find that voice and what it means for the transformation of our lives. 

Just as God calls his son Jesus Beloved at his baptism, God also calls us his Beloved. We are made in the image of God, and God sees us and knows us. He sees all of us, even our dark hidden parts, and loves us not despite of but regardless. He calls us his Beloved. Before we did anything to serve him, to better ourselves, before we had any chance to love him back in return, God takes us in and calls us his Beloved.

It’s really hard to claim this title for ourselves. It’s hard to believe in a love that is not conditional, and yet God invites us into this divine and holy mystery of being his Beloved. This is not something we earn, but it is something that we are invited to live into. To live life not just as us, but as Beloved by God. I am not just Jessie - I am Jessie, God’s Beloved. Isn’t that beautiful? This is something that is true, not only as I am here today, but something that I am called to grow in. To be transformed in. That everyday I might know deeper just how Beloved by God I am, and that this beautiful, merciful truth might also radically change who I am and what I do more and more into the image of Christ. 

This hits at what Henri Nouwen calls the first stage of living into being and becoming God’s Beloved: taken. Nouwen divided becoming the Beloved into four stages, which are not exactly linear and can overlap and collide, but is still a useful model to use. Those stages are: taken, broken, blessed, and given. This is modeled after Jesus’s example during the Last Supper, when the bread and wine was taken, broken, blessed, and given to his disciples. Jesus’s body went through the same stages the next day on the cross.

God has taken, chosen, each one of us. He sees all of us and celebrates. He notices our uniqueness and leans in to know us better and love us more deeply. Before we had anything to give, before we performed, or were praised, or served others, God looked at everything that made us us and saw us as precious, with infinite value and deserving of unending love. And God does the same with every single person that He creates - being taken is not an exclusive club, but an inclusive one. A loving family of God, inviting all people into God’s love and compassion, celebrating the unique differences that God gifted to us. 

For me, it is really hard to celebrate that God has chosen me, because I still struggle to believe that God didn’t make a mistake when He chose me. I spend more of my time dwelling on all the things I’ve done wrong and messed up, all the things I wish I could change about myself, than on what God says about me. I know that God has taken me, that He loves me, that He calls me his Beloved, and yet it is hard for this knowledge to overtake the pain in my heart. Being and becoming the Beloved, claiming yourself as taken by God, also takes a lot of deep and intimate healing. We all have scars from our lives. There are parts of us that we reject, there are lies we have been told and believed, there is the belief that love has to be earned. All of these scars are chains, keeping us from fully grasping and living into life as God’s Beloved. So I encourage you first today that you ARE God’s Beloved. He really did make you uniquely special in his image, He really did love you before you ever did anything, and his love really is enough to heal and sustain you. God’s kingdom includes you. His love includes you. I also want to invite you deeper into the healing that God works in his Beloved. Your scars can be healed, your chains can be broken - God longs to set you free. Hear God call out to you as his Beloved, and take the courageous step of faith to actually believe. Let that wonderful revelation - that the God of the whole universe loves, cares about, and chooses you - transform everything that you do, let it heal your scars, let it break your chains. 

I’ve begun to dabble into poetry, and would like to share this poem with y’all. May it be an anthem cry to your soul that longs to know itself as God’s beloved:

Do you hear the whisper

Echoing from the deep?

"Come out my child,

Come out my Beloved!

Come and receive my love -

Let it hold you."

This voice is all around

And yet it's hard to find.

Because so many other voices are louder,

Drowning it out,

Causing us to lose focus.

Focus!

Focus in -

Listen up.

Let it be the last thing you do

And the first thing that you hear.

Let it reverberate

Throughout your body.

Let it take root in your soul.

BELOVED!

You are beloved by God

HIS beloved.

He has taken you,

And called you his own.

Let this calling

Overshadow everything else you think you know.

Let go of past mistakes 

Let go of previous hurts

Let go of ideas of perfection 

And ideas of unworthiness 

Hold on to God instead!

Don't let the other voices in.

Don’t let them have a say.

Because you are God's BELOVED

It has always been that way,

And always will be.

So keep holding on.

Hold on to God,

Hold on to hope and love.

Let God guide you out of dark waters

And into his loving embrace.

Let the Lord speak his truth into you,

Casting out the lies you've been led to believe.

You are God's BELOVED -

Believe it,

And live it.

Let this sacred promise

Anchor your soul

And be your guiding light.

Believe it above all else,

And let God lead the way.