YOU ARE GOD'S BELOVED - I AM GOD'S BELOVED

I saw that God
never began to love us.

For just as we will be
in everlasting joy
(all God's creation is destined for this)

so also we have always been
in God's foreknowledge,
known and loved
from without beginning.

Julian of Norwich

I love the Book of Common Prayer. I love both Rites for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist and all the Eucharistic prayers. I love the "Prayer of Humble Access", although a good many folks I know don't care for the prayer because of the emphasis on "We be not worthy...." There are people who have been so beaten down by "the changes and chances of this uncertain world" that they do not want nor do they need to hear that they are not worthy, and I fully understand. Still, I love the prayer for myself.

We do not presume to come to this thy Table (O merciful Lord) trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We be not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the Flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his Blood, in these holy Mysteries, that we may continually dwell in him, and he in us, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his Body, and our souls washed through his most precious Blood. Amen.

Sometimes I say the prayer before communion, because the words express what is in my heart at the moment. I sing "Amazing Grace" without cringing at "a wretch like me". What I am, I am by the grace of God, who says to me, "You are my beloved." All is grace. All is love. That I am God's beloved trumps all.

I know what I was without God in my life, and I see what I am with God in my life. To express in words the difference between living in hope and living with little or no hope, between knowing the love of God surrounds me and is within me and knowing the emptiness when I believed God had not much to do with me is close to impossible.

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you....

The knowledge that I am God's beloved is my salvation every day of my life. Therein lies my strength and my song. Yes, I have my moments (even hours and days!) of discouragement, but the secure knowledge of God's love and God's grace at work in me draws me back into the circle of hope.

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?

Thanks be to God!

Image from Wikimedia Commons.