I've been rattling around the idea of starting a blog of my own for the last few months and finally decided to take the leap. Here we go. Thanks for joining me for the ride!
My hope is that this blog will serve a twofold purpose. I primarily view this as a journal of sorts for me to get ideas out of my head ~ they tend to get lost in there ~ and as a creative outlet to express myself. I also can see this as an opportunity to share my perspectives and experiences with my friends and family ~ perhaps to connect more with those who mean the most to me. I suspect that my posts will range anywhere from the more thoughtful to the downright mundane.
I feel that there are two things I should explain before going any further, the blog address (reverent love) and my title (Be Loved).
Reverent Love
We all know what Love is. Right? Okay, that may deserve a little more discussion later but at least we all know what we think Love is. Or might be. Or should be.
What about Reverent? Who says "reverent"? I can already hear some of you, "Here she goes. Here comes the religion." Well, that could bring up a whole different conversation but I'll save that, too, for later. And yes, I will certainly go down that road here. But not now. And yes, there's probably a bit of a connection between my faith in God and my understanding of Reverent Love. Let's see.
Webster defines reverent as "expressing or characterized by reverence". Helpful. How about reverence. It is defined as "profound adoring awed respect". That sounds about right. That pretty much describes how I view Love. Here's what dictionary.com has to offer:
Profound ~ Being or going far beneath what is superficial, external, or obvious.
Adore ~ To regard with the utmost esteem, love and respect; honor.
Awe ~ An overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc., produced by that which is grand, sublime, extremely powerful, or the like.
Respect ~ deference to... someone or something considered to have certain rights or priveleges; acknowledgment.
That wraps it up. That even puts a big beautiful bow on it. That describes exactly how profoundly, adorably, respectfully in awe I am of love. Can I define love? Love is so many things to each of us. Love can be an affection, an attachment, a passion, a concern, an enthusiasm, or even (as in tennis) nothing at all. Okay, so I may not know exactly what love is. But I do know one thing. God is love. My God is love. And all that is love is worthy of my profound adoring awe and respect.
Be Loved
I recently read about living your life with one word in mind. A word of your choosing. I'll be writing about this in the near future so I won't go into too much detail now. At any rate, I've been thinking about what word or words have had a big impact on me recently and realized that the word beloved has really struck me in the last few years.
It's not a word that I grew up hearing. It's not part of my vernacular. Maybe that's why it struck me like a bell the first time I heard it. Come to think of it, it was not auditory at all the first time I "heard" the word beloved. I read the word as part of a Beth Moore study. It really hit me ~ I was someone's beloved.
It sounded so foreign. It sounded so desirable. It sounded so... decided, so done. I was someone's beloved. I was someone's beloved. I was someone's beloved. It was amazing to me. All I had to do was accept it. It was already there! All I had to do was be... loved. It's as simple as that... right? So, that's my message for today.
Be loved, Beloved. Be loved.
