Still. Beloved.
And so it came… it tiptoed itself into my heart, silently, imperceptibly, and I looked at it with wonder. It was still small, a light-blue flame, trembling softly.
~ Irena Tweedie
Today’s guest post continues the theme of Belovedness and comes from my friend and doctoral colleague Jennifer Clark. This topic has so gripped her for decades that it became the basis for her entire doctoral project. Enjoy!
If I’m honest, pain drove me to pay attention to Love. We all have pain in some form or fashion; none are immune. Mine took the shape of anxiety and depression. Some may see it manifested in anger, or addiction, or perfectionism. In our instantaneous culture, I expected God to give me immediate relief. When this didn’t happen, I began to recognize the fact that God rarely does immediate quick work, and that quick work is rarely thorough. Throughout Scripture, we read stories of lives that marinate for decades in the slow work of God. The Potter takes time in shaping the clay, and as I wrestled with this fact, I found that God was ready and willing to meet me with unhurried thoroughness, so I began to pay attention...at first out of desperation.
I see you...I delight in you…a bruised reed I will not break…I’m giving you a new name…no longer are you called desolate and forsaken, the name I give you is “My Delight Is In Her”…there is no place you can go that I will not go with you…I have engraved your name in the palm of my hand, you are ever before me…I gather your tears…I place your feet in a broad space. I deliver you because I delight in you…I am with you.
It's hard to articulate decades of the slow work of God, but these words are the kisses of love that God has tenderly and continually bestowed upon me in my journey. For a long time, I expected the hammer to fall. I expected to hear words that confirmed the shame I already felt. “Why are you so weak? Where is your faith? What’s wrong with you? Just get yourself together! Get over it!” Words I told myself or even heard from others.
Yet never once has God shamed me. Never once has God belittled me for my weakness, that I am but dust. In fact, often when I felt extreme anxiety, God would put someone in my path that, unbeknownst to them, calmed me, as if to say, “It’s ok. I’m here. And look, ‘So and So’ is here too. You’re going to be ok.” Slowly, very slowly, a new identity was being formed— an identity of belovedness, and I found in Jesus the perfect example, companion, and means of this identity.
As I began to see the heart of the Triune God revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, three ideas started to percolate in me: Trinity, Imago Dei, and Incarnation. The theology that God is a Holy Trinity, a Community of Love, gives me pause to consider that Love is the centering attribute of God. God is Love, and the love that has eternally existed between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is tenderly extended to me, to all the world indeed, but to me personally. In fact, I was created in love.
This idea that humankind, which includes me, was created in the image or likeness of God, imago Dei, tells me that I was created by love and for love. I am created to share the capacity for love and relationship with the Holy Trinity, with others, with creation, and with myself. In the Incarnation, the thought that God has come to us, come to me, has taken the initiative to be with me, to know me, to see me, desires relationship with me, has taken my brokenness and suffered for me, is a thought I will never get over. I am undone by this reality, slayed by love. Overcome!
As I see Jesus in the Gospels, the relationship between Father and Son also ministers to me deeply. The heart of the Father is revealed in the words spoken over Jesus in his baptism and inauguration of his ministry. “You are My Son, the Beloved, in whom I delight.” Of all things that could be recorded as the audible words of the Father in the Gospels, the authors of the synoptic gospels emphasize the Father voicing belovedness and delight. And not just once.
Again, the authors highlight the audible voice of the Father speaking belovedness over the Son in the Transfiguration event. And when Jesus has his last discourse with his disciples before the crucifixion, he emphasizes that all his ministry (the healings, the teachings, the restorations of identity) has been a display of the love between Father and Son, and that this is also our calling, to minister love as a display of the glory of our relationship with God. I hope you hear the words of a very personal belovedness being spoken over you by God today.
growing your soul
How do the voices of shame and belovedness show up in your soul? Which lands with more authenticity?
serving our world
How do you think your identity as God’s shameless beloved will affect those around you?
takeaway
Trust God’s delight in you.