and then the Becoming.

"From the moment we claim the truth of being the Beloved, we are faced with the call to become who we are."


This statement resonates so much with what I have heard and said so many times over. It's a question of identity. A person who is of royal lineage but doesn't know it lives quite differently from another who has royal blood and knows it. That person carries himself or herself with an aura not like other people. There's just something about him/her.


Question: when you know you are Beloved, how do you carry yourself? It's one thing to know your identity. It's another to have it manifested in a tangible way. Like, it's oozes out of your life it's hard to miss. To claim the full truth of your Belovedness - would that mean that it surely shows in your daily existence? Is not Becoming the Beloved a sure part of Being the Beloved? To let this truth become "enfleshed" in all that you say, think and do, rather than it being merely a beautiful thought or a blurry imagination, doesn't it mean you're called not only to BE but to BECOME who you know you are?


Know who you are, and walk in the knowledge of that.
You're chosen.
You're royalty.
You're holy.
You're a person who belongs to God.


Into chapter 2 of Nouwen's book. I'm finding it so hard not to rush through the whole book. Letting each page sink in. It's so true! I cannot think "I'm Beloved" without responding to the call of Becoming. Yet, responding to this call is too much and takes a lifetime...but it doesn't make sense to have it any other way! Remember, I am only able to give this gift of Belovedness to others inasmuch as I have myself experienced it. It's so exciting to see someone realize he/she is so loved, I want them to really live it! And this means me, too. I am reminded today, as Nouwen provokes me, that Experiencing BEING the Beloved is not possible unless I embark on the journey of BECOMING:

• To claim my Belovedness, which demands that I enflesh all the realities of this truth from heaven to shed light on my ordinary, mundane and occasionally tiresome existence. 
• To not only say yes to it once, but over and over so that there is a sense of becoming more and more what I am in the process of grasping. Painful, long process. 
• To allow myself grace for my forgetfulness, but always return to my identity that tells me, "You are and always will be the Beloved."
  

May the engraving of this identity never end! The more I live it out, the more I know what it really should look like.