October, 2008

In this Spiritual Formation major, we are being asked to read a lot and to reflect on what we read. We are also asked to reflect in our prayer time on certain topics. For me, reflection time tends to be a luxury. Prayers tend to be a list of points, rather than a time of dwelling and resting, so this has certainly been a challenge.

One of our more recent prayer assignments was to spend time reflecting on ourselves as God’s beloved. I couldn’t believe how tough this was for me. I spent a while resting in my position as God’s child. That was easy – seeing Him as my Daddy or even as a Mommy that I go to when I am in need of comfort, of sustenance, of a nurturing love. I go to Him for direction like I used to do with my folks. (Though with God, I probably take His directions more readily than I did my parents’!) I rail against Him when I’m frustrated even as I used to do with my parents when I was an angst-filled teen. I see God as dependable, loving, and consistently just – like I saw my folks and like I try to be as I parent my children.

But we were supposed to reflect on the idea of being God’s beloved. Though that term could be an adjective for a child, as a noun it typically applies to a lover or a spouse. Wow. Now this one was tough. Try as I might, I just couldn’t feel this one.

What’s really ironic is my name, Amy, means beloved. And when I was in college, I had a notebook (which I still use) that had a verse on the front: “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:11, KJV) I bought it because I liked a verse where God was “speakin’ to me”. The term beloved is translated differently in other versions, but I hauled out the old KJV concordance to find a few more verses to help me dwell on this thought. Deuteronomy 33:12 says “Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in Him, for He shields [me] all day long, and the one the Lord loves rests between His shoulders.” I liked that one. I picture myself in a baby-backpack with my head asleep on God’s back. But that still wasn’t the beloved that the idea of a spouse conjures up. I had to go to the Song of Solomon to get that.

For my first twenty years of life this book was too embarrassing to read. Then through the twenties and those early years of marriage, it became a book of intrigue and longing. After five kids, it became a walk down memory lane. In fact to read it now exhausts me – the passion!! Needless to say I haven’t spent much time there of late. I decided to take a half-day to read it and try to picture myself as God’s beloved in the story, to picture His longing for me and to rest in thoughts of my longing for Him. Talk about tough. At first it almost seemed sacrilegious. But I know this book is often viewed as an allegory for Christ and His church, and I am, after all, a part of His church so I kept after it. Why is it easier for me to see this book on a corporate level rather than a personal one? Do I want to keep Christ at arm’s length? Don’t I want to feel myself in the same kind of tender embrace that I feel from my husband? Or is that just weird?

I tried to think of what made me feel loved by Mike. I remembered a few of those first times I felt deeply loved by him. Mind you, love was there from shortly after we began dating, but, admittedly, at that time it was largely hormonally driven. One of the first times I felt truly loved was in the first weeks after we were married. I had come home from China with parasites and carried the little critters into our wedded bliss. Combine those pests with the stress of putting a wedding together in six weeks’ time, and with the transition of actually marrying, and, well, it was enough to create more than a little turmoil in my intestinal track. I spent hours sitting on the throne and Mike would come in and sit on the tub across from me and just hold my hand.

Another of those first times I felt loved was about six months into our marriage. I couldn’t find my earrings. They were diamond earrings that Mike had given to me as a wedding gift. I was devastated. He was helping me search, turning every part of that old mobile home upside down. My mom happened to show up and asked what we were doing. Mike told her that we had lost my earrings and were looking for them. Afterwards I remember chewing on that. If the tables had been turned, I would have been sure to have noted that it was he who had lost the item, that I was the innocent party just helping out (emphasizing my magnanimous love and patience in the process). Never would I have taken blame on myself that I didn’t deserve. But here this man willingly did. He took ownership of my stupidity.

The amazing thing is that even just thinking about those times makes my heart swell with gratitude all over again. It fills me with a love that literal warms my gut and makes me want to throw myself all over Mike. Look out, Baby! (Oops! Maybe I should withhold that information…) Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that his sacrificial love creates within me a visceral response. I already knew I was loved, but when he does things like that, I feel it as well. So how do I keep that alive when I think about God?

Obviously, I need to take time to dwell on the ultimate sacrifice – the cross. I need to carry that sacrificial love around in my heart. Colossians says that we are chosen by God, holy and beloved (3:12). We had nothing to do with being chosen by God. He chose us from before time. M. Robert Mulholland, in his book The Deeper Journey explains it this way: we are “chosen in love and for love…Being beloved is no more our doing than being God’s chosen ones. The unfathomable depths of our belovedness is revealed in the cruciform love of God in Christ.” (p. 119)

So this is where I’m camping out for a while, trying to understand this idea of being chosen. As a follower. As a daughter. As a beloved.

Like a rock,

The Submissive Despot

Amy Louise

Amy Shane