Reading: Being the Beloved
“[your name], all I want to say to you is ‘You are the Beloved,’ and all I hope is that you can hear these words as spoken to you with all the tenderness and force that love can hold. My only desire is to make these words reverberate in every corner of your being – ‘You are the Beloved.” (P30).
1) Has anyone ever told you this before? You are the beloved of God.
a) What does the word “Beloved” mean to you?
b) What does Henri want to say to you when he says “You Are the Beloved”?
c) Have you been rejecting this truth? Are you more comfortable with low self-esteem or arrogance?
d) Why might you be more comfortable with low self-esteem or arrogance? What need might this negative way of being meet for you?
2) This Advent, what can you do practically to create a place “where that quiet voice calling [you] the Beloved [can] be heard?” (P36)
a) What can you do to remove some of the “dry sand” that covers the well?
b) What might help you to hear the voice of God’s love for you?
INVITATION: Please share some words from the Holy Scriptures through which God speaks words of love and affirmation to you (refer also to page 36 where Henri did this).
3) Henri, with all of his love and passion, is pleading with us to claim the truth of our Belovedness as our core truth.
a) Have you been tempted, in the past, to look someone or something else to affirm you? Or tell you of your worth?
b) If you were to embrace the truth of your Belovedness today, how might your life change? What might you be free to do, be, give or receive?
INVITATION: Imagine the physical core of your body. Put your hand there. Now put the truth “You Are the Beloved” firmly in there. As you go through each day, and encounter loud and persistent negative voices around you or in you, go into your core and claim the truth of your Belovedness. What is the result?
As always, I offer these questions to help get our discussion going, but please feel free to share whatever comes up for you through the readings/comments of others.
Brynn