I love that He calls us His Beloved.

“I’ll call nobodies and make them somebodies; I’ll call the unloved and make them beloved.” Romans 12:25 (the message quoting Hosea)

I read this over the weekend and can’t quit thinking about it …

Aren’t you, like me hoping that some person, thing or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being you desire? Don’t you often hope: “May this book, idea, course, trip, job, country or relationship fulfill my deepest desire.” But as long as you are waiting for that mysterious moment you will go on running helter-skelter, always anxious and restless, always lustful and angry, never fully satisfied. You know that this is the compulsiveness that keeps us going and busy, but at the same time makes us wonder whether we are getting anywhere in the long run. This is the way to spiritual exhaustion and burn-out. This is the way to spiritual death.

Well, you and I don’t have to kill ourselves. We are the Beloved. We are intimately loved long before our parents, teachers, spouses, children and friends loved or wounded us. That’s the truth of our lives. That’s the truth I want you to claim for yourself. That’s the truth spoken by the voice that says, “You are my Beloved.”

Listening to that voice with great in your attentiveness, I hear words that say:

“I have called you by name, from the very beginning. You are mine and I am yours. You are my Beloved, on you my favor rest. I have molded you in the depths of the earth and knitted you together in your mothers womb. I have carved you in the palms of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace. I look at you with infinite tenderness and care for you with a care more intimate than that of a mother for a child. I have counted every hair on your head and guided you at every step. Wherever you go, I go with you, and where ever you rest, I keep watch. I will give you food that will satisfy all your hunger and drink that will quench all your thirst. I will not hide my face from you. You know me as your own and I know you as my own, You belong to Me … wherever you are I will be. Nothing will ever separate us. We are one.”

–Life of the Beloved by Henri J.M. Nouwen

And the truth is all we have to do is accept His love …

to live loved by allowing ourselves to

Be Loved.

Because we already are His Beloved.