Beloved

I pulled out one of my old Bibles today in an attempt to catch up on my read-thru-the-Bible-in-a-year-plan. I fell way behind this week. I usually read while I'm waiting in the carpool line and since it was spring break and there wasn't a carpool line to sit in, I fell out of my groove.


I've been doing my daily readings from The Message translation. It's fresh and different and seems to make some of the tedious chapters in the Old Testament lot easier to plow through.


Today, though, I pulled out one of my older Bibles (my Ryrie NASB, a sentimental favorite). I love looking back through Bibles I haven't used for a while and seeing notes I've made and things I've jotted down. I even found some treasures I'd hidden between the pages; some things that made me smile, and some things that made me miss people I dearly love. On the very last page of this particular Bible, I found a passage that I'd written down. Thought I'd share it with all of you. Because it's really, really good. Read it, and let yourself be loved.




"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 rests. I have molded you in the depths of the earth and I knitted you together in your mother's 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 her child. I have counted every hair on your head and guided you at every step. Wherever you go, I go with you and wherever 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 as I know you as my own. You belong to me. Wherever you are I will be. Nothing will ever separate us. We are one."


--Henri Nowen from Life of the Beloved