Who Am I?
BODY/BREATH
Find a comfortable seat. Lengthen your spine. Gently close your eyes and breathe in and out of your nose. Place your hands on your head as you take three deep cleansing breaths. Relax and let go.
READ
“You are my beloved child with whom I am well pleased." (inspired by Matthew 3:17)
“Everything changes radically from the moment you know yourself as being sent into this world….The change of which I speak is the change from living life as a painful test to prove that you deserved to be loved, to living it as an unceasing “Yes” to the truth of that Belovedness. Put simply, life is a God-given opportunity to become who we are, to affirm our own true spiritual nature, claim our truth, appropriate and integrate the reality of our being, but, most of all, to say “Yes” to the One who calls us the Beloved.” — Henri Nouwen
QUESTION
What would change in your life if you knew deep to your core that you are a Beloved child of God with whom they are well pleased? What would look different in your life, if anything? How would you speak and act? Who would be in the world? What more would you risk to help others if the Spirit constantly reminded you of who and whose you are?
REFLECTION
We are all broken in some way. The world breaks us, and it is our task to not let the darkness overcome us. I almost lost this battle many years ago.
After successfully pleasing my parents and almost everyone around me for twenty-one years, I fell for a girl. This personal revelation shattered my world and ruptured the ties between my childhood church and my biological family. The weight of my parent’s rejection almost killed me, but a still small voice, which I believe to be the Holy Spirit, said to me this: You are my beloved Child with whom I am well pleased. On that sunny autumn day, I didn’t end my life because something in me believed that God never left me. Who I was, how I felt but most importantly, who I was becoming was still within God’s reign. Even when my own flesh and blood rejected me, God, through the Holy Spirit, did not.
PRAYER
O Holy One, thank you for always loving us. Help us to see your ways.
