To Embrace the Belovedness of Being…

I want to share a prayer written by Christine Valters Painter:

Holy One, inspire the eyes of our hearts to see ourselves as beloved just as we are. Help us remember there is nothing we need to do to be worthy or loved, that everything magical and alive in this stunning world pulses within us as well. Each of us is blessed by the simple fact of being created by you, our belovedness as close as our own breath. As your children—ordinary, weird, and quirky—we are precious in your sight. By the fact of our existence, we have a share in your being alongside mineral and mountain, river and flow, the tide ebbing and rising. The fire of constellations burns within us as does the breath of your inspiration. Infuse our dreams with visions of a world where everyone is loved just as we are, the tender and trembling parts welcome alongside the bold and bewitching ones. Your voice echoes across generations: I am who am, and we stand in that presence too, knowing ourselves as creatures destined for holiness, flesh redeemed with all our scars and wounds, the broken places shimmering with your grace. Bless the circles we stand in, that we might be seen for who we are and see others in the light of your love, each of us a sliver of starlight, our radiance ringing out across a galaxy of hope.

I often tell myself (and students) in my yoga classes that as you practice, you are not trying to achieve worth—you are remembering it. I do not know where I first heard this, but I like it. Worth can mean the value, usefulness or importance of something. Some synonyms for worth are excellence, importance, significance and value. I love a good ole dictionary and/or thesaurus.

This prayer says to “help us to remember there is nothing we need to do to be worthy or loved…” Achievement in worldly things was once my foundation for identity. I felt important, significant and valued when I achieved. I would remember my achievements and that would sometimes give me a good feeling of success in life and a confidence around family or friends. Getting awards for athletics, being in beta club when I was in middle school, getting a promotion at work, buying my first home, getting awards in sales jobs—all things that made me feel like I was “doing well”. Many of my life achievements are good things, but sadly I was making them the foundation of my identity for much of my younger years of formation. The more I do my own work of digging into the intricate ways God created me, the more I see how this identity started to take root. My mind would tell me that being useful and successful= I mattered. Do good and you will be praised. Perform well and people will like you. This is not the message of the gospel, but it does seem to be the message of our world.

Then good news comes along. In fact, John 1:14 says that “Jesus became flesh and and made his dwelling among us.” Jesus is the embodiment of God’s good news. Jesus comes along and says you are loved here and now—you were loved from the beginning. Jesus who is my creator, my father, my God. So how do we live in this world and trust that God sees me as worthy and his beloved without doing a thing? This goes against all things many of us have been taught since toddler years.

But then I think of myself as a parent. I love them for who they are and not for anything they do or do not do. My daughter did not have to learn how to potty train in 2 days when she was little for me to love her any more or less. My son did not have to clean up his room for me to love him and more or less. This is the shift. The love in their heart and my heart matters so much more than things we achieve in this short vapor of life.

Being secure in Christs love for me allows me live my life from this place of belovedness. So the order to all of this starts with the fact God loves us. 1 John 4:19 says “we love because he first loved us.” So from birth, we teach our loved ones that God loves us. For those of us growing up in a Christian faith, we have done this—-we taught our kids the song “Jesus loves me.” But the difference for me is I got this all in the mind and memory of lyrics, but it did not take root in my heart. I needed to experientially receive and know that love. But how do you do that?

For me, experiencing that love has become less about trying to create a feeling and more about learning to receive. It means slowing down enough to notice God’s presence—in prayer, in my breath, in the beauty of creation, in the love of people around me and in the quiet moments of stillness and surrender. I do not have to perform or achieve—I can simply be. Sometimes this feels deeply comforting, and sometimes it feels almost impossible to live out. But perhaps that is why it is a practice: returning again and again to the truth that I am already loved, already held, already God's beloved. This is the practice.

So we remember our worth. We do not exercise, serve others, love people or accomplish things in order to become worthy. We begin where Jesus began: as the beloved son. Before the work, before the achievement, before the striving, there was love. And from that secure place, we are now free to become the people God created us to be! Ephesians 2:10 reminds me that I am God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works. The good works matter, but they are not the foundation of my worth—they are the fruit of it. We are already beloved. We already belong. And the lifelong practice for me is simply learning to live from that truth. Perhaps is becomes a daily practice of reorienting the heart or knowing our “belovedness as close as our own breath.”