You are Loved.
You’ve seen this phrase on the front yard of the church, on our church website, and heard it often in our worship services. This phrase is more powerful, more revolutionary, and more subversive than one might realize. It is a fact. A thing that is known and proved to be true.
You are loved no matter who you are, who you love, what you do for a living, who you vote for, who you think you are or aren’t. You are loved.
Whether you are driving down the highway, sitting at home, or working in the garden.
Loved, whether you are so mad you could spit, whether you are enjoying the warm embrace of your partner, or filled with grief or anxiety.
Your circumstances don’t change this fact.
There are no alternate realities in which this is not a fact.
This fact is rooted in the love of God.
It is a love that is established in a covenant of uncompromising faithfulness to an often wayward partner.
When we are rooted and grounded in love (as Paul in Ephesians writes) we become more and more who God has created us to be.
Of course, the flipside is that when we forget that we are loved, when we forget our divine worth, we are disconnected from God and from one another. It is then that we do the coping, the unhealthy behaviors, the trying to earn our worth and our value, to try and manage the pain of disconnection. In doing that, we transmit the pain to others and it has the potential to become a chain reaction.
Remembering that we are loved is incredibly important in the life of those who follow Jesus. It is because of that love, that prevenient grace, that we are able to respond in caring for our neighbor with the deeply radical love of Jesus. It is that love, that prompts us to respond in praise to God. It is that love that enables, no frees us to love ourselves fully.
I pray that during this challenging season you will find a way to remind yourself of the everlasting love of God.
Here's our sign:
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