“Beloved”
And a voice came from the heavens, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” Mark 1:11
(def) Beloved: dearly loved.
The definition is concise and true, yet it seems insufficient to express the immense feelings the word holds. Look at the synonyms: treasured, cherished, adored, precious, prized, esteemed, darling.
With the word “beloved,” there is a sense of longing, of a desire to be with another. There is the feeling of a breath caught and then the sweet whisper… “my beloved.”
Yet, not only is there love, there is Love in the grandest sense. Love so great that the heavens open and shine upon the beloved, and a voice proclaims with incredible joy to all who are willing to listen, this is my beloved, with who I am well pleased.
And the incredible gift is that we, too, are beloved. We, too, are treasured, cherished, adored and found precious. We are already worthy. We are already enough.
And with the endearment: “So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved…” comes an invitation- “put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” Colossians 3:12.
We are invited to embrace a new heart, the heart of our Beloved.
We are invited to open ourselves to having new hearts created within us, simply by being filled with the abundance of Love beyond love as we understand it.
“The mind that is the prisoner of conventional ideas, and the will that is the captive of its own desire cannot accept the seeds of an unfamiliar truth and supernatural desire…I must learn therefore to let go of the familiar and the usual and consent to what is new and unknown to me. I must learn to “leave myself” in order to find myself by YIELDING TO THE LOVE OF GOD.” -Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
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