Beloved

I pray for two things every morning over my granddaughter. I pray that she will come to know Jesus as Her Savior at a young age and grow in love and knowledge every day. And I pray a verse over her from Ephesians 3:18-19:

“I pray that Joy, being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ [for her], [that she may] know this love that surpasses knowledge and may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

I didn’t grow up “rooted and established in love.” I grew up with judgment. I grew up with scary things happening to me. I grew up believing I was a disappointment to the people I wanted so badly to love me. I was so hungry to be loved that I married a man who, after four years of abuse, told me he didn’t love me. Friends who once told me they loved me, later walked away because my emotional neediness was too heavy a burden.

I’ve been in ministry long enough to know that many of you are shaking your head, probably with tears in your eyes, in understanding

But what I didn’t know, until much later in life, was that there was a God in heaven who loved me from before I was born. He loved me even as others used “love” as an excuse for abuse. He loved me despite all the scars on my heart and body. No – check that. He loved my scars. He loved my wounded, frightened heart. He loved me and the weight of my broken past.

If you only ever grab one thing I write, take hold of this and never let go: God loves you.

He loves everything about you – “the good, the bad, and the ugly.” Others may have hurt you, failed you, walked away from you, and hurled verbal darts at you. But God loves you with a pure and perfect love that will never end. Never. Receive it. Believe it. Plant yourself in it and grow. You are the Beloved of God.