Embrace Your Face Friday

i've been called many a names 

in my life.

i'm 

guessing 

you 

have 

too.

this is my husband and i. 

he has never,

not 

once, ever called me a name. (a bad name) 

i've known him for over 11 years.

there is only one name i choose to claim of all the names that have

been thrown at me through the years, 

and that is Beloved.

and whether you know it or not or agree with it or not or believe it or not,

you

are 

the

Beloved

too.

Here is what my favorite cutie Author Henri Nouwen has to say about being the Beloved:

I would like to speak to you about the spiritual life as the life of the beloved. As a member of a community of people with mental disabilities, I have learned a lot from people with disabilities about what it means to be the beloved. Let me start by telling you that many of the people that I live with hear voices that tell them that they are no good, that they are a problem, that they are a burden, that they are a failure. They hear a voice that keeps saying, "If you want to be loved, you had better prove that you are worth loving. You must show it."

But what I would like to say is that the spiritual life is a life in which you gradually learn to listen to a voice that says something else, that says, "You are the beloved and on you my favor rests." 

i took this at the Arboretum Summer/2011

the life of the beloved starts by trusting that we are created in our uniqueness, that we are unique in God's eyes, precious.

and because of this fact, all other names can be pushed aside.

we don't have to claim the other names of 

stupid, untalented, dumb, slow, lazy, ugly, fat, worthless, failure, idiot, slut, loud; countless awful names

there are many labels, names and stereotypes, 

but 

they aren't you.

knowing that we are the Beloved, meaning loved by God, and belonging to him,

means we are not bound by what negative cruel things others might have said,

or 

done to us.

and once we learn to claim our belovedness, we can start to see others that way too.

we start to recognize our belovedness greets the belovedness of another.

The God alive in me greets the God resident in you. 

 north shore Fall/2011

i embrace being the beloved of God, 

do 

you?

and i see others as the beloved too.

"I am my Beloved and my Beloved is mine." Song of Solomon