BEHOLD the Beloved

With so much time to think, I have been pondering and avoiding the pondering.

How about you? Are you using this time to dig deep into your own soul and your inherent motivations for why you even do life the way you’ve chosen to do it?

Are you asking yourself the tough questions? Delving into your own psyche and seeing how a time like this pandemic unveils the best and worst of who we are at our very cores?

To be perfectly honest and keep this post gut-level real at its very ugliest, I have spent far more time contemplating my next quarantine snack than my core motivations.

I’ve been self-focused on my own allergy-provoked sniffles and what they might mean beyond the seasonal pollen-ridden air, instead of seeking to check my heart and why I care so much about so many things that truly matter little in the grand scheme of who God created me to be in the first place.

I have scrolled and jumped from one report to the next, one meme to the next, one complaining tirade to the next (far more speedily from the latter). I have numbed my mind with every streaming service I subscribe to (equal opportunity viewing, because I don’t want anyone to feel left out during this time).

Much of what I’ve read and viewed has encouraged, inspired, and motivated me. I have felt challenged, prompted, and convicted.

However, what the Spirit whispered to my heart this morning is this:

“Do you BEHOLD the Beloved?”
What does that even mean?

Let me walk you through what sometimes resembles a pile of Silly String once it’s landed all over the floor:

I am the BELOVED of Jesus. You are too.  You and I make up the collective “Bride of Christ”.  Every single day we awaken, we are SEEN by the One who created us. He adores us just as we are.

Yet, if I am truly transparent, I focus WAY too much on any given day with the thought that the people outside my house matter when it comes to how I look and how I feel about how I look.

Bear with me as I try to unpack this a bit, especially considering this monstrous suitcase has been riding on my back for nearly 50 years.

I am created in God’s image. (So are you.)
I am beloved by Him. (So are you.)
I routinely rip apart and speak self-deprecating words to and about myself (so much so that I purposely gave up negative speech about myself for Lent). Oh yes, it IS still Lent!

My 2020 word for the year is BEHOLD.

What my tender friend, Jesus, is teaching me and encouraging me to share with anyone who will read it is this:

BEHOLD the Beloved

Yes, look at yourself through His eyes and SEE yourself as He sees you, really see yourself that way! He created you perfectly from the very beginning.


  • He didn’t think your lips were too thin. He just wanted you to use them to smile at yourself and then smile at others, brightening their days.
  • He didn’t think your eyes were too close together. He just wanted you to look through them at what He made, starting with the beauty reflecting back at you in the mirror, because if you can accept that as beauty —you will recognize how you too are part of all the beauty He created for  His glory. 
  • He didn’t make your hips too wide, your nose too long, your tummy too jiggly. You get my point.  He made it ALL FOR His good pleasure, and YOU are BEAUTIFUL to Him. 
So, what does that mean for this time we are all spending away from most everyone and everything? That’s where I got all deep of thought this morning. 

Why do I do any of the things I do to take care of myself? To please, impress, influence the others whose paths I may cross on any given day? That would all be shot out the window these days when I have seen a grand total of about 11 people since this time last week!

I must value myself to some extent to exercise the most basic efforts at self-care. I brush my teeth. I freshen up my curls. I wash my face. Then I take it a step further. I put on a dress. I paint my toenails. I put on lipstick. Why? Because I am His Beloved, and I want to feel like I am worth celebrating regardless of who or what else I may see or may see me. I MUST BEHOLD the Beloved. It is life-sustaining and pleasing to my Father who made me. 

What can you do to BEHOLD the Beloved today? Please let me know! 

Leaving a trail of beauty ~

Pam 





 

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