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previous ~ ~ ~ next So, this song is about half of the inspiration for the title of this site. About a month ago... maybe a little more, one of our pastors spoke about God giving us a name. (If you're interested, you can probably look here to find it. It doesn't look like it's posted just yet.) He talked about how we all have past hurts and that pretty much everyone has allowed those events to be labels in how they think of themselves. A girl teased as a teenager about her clothing or appearance often thinks of herself as ugly in later life... That sort of thing. And he pointed out that God doesn't see us that way, that God has entirely different labels for us... ones that build up instead of tear down. Which may sound like a terribly generic message--after all, most of us know on some basic level that God loves us. Which, in turn, means that he doesn't say nasty things about us behind our backs. At the same time, Mike's comments really made me think about how often I do let myself be defined by the labels I apply or others apply... and how that limits God. Mike asked us to pray about it (imagine that! Praying, right there in church!), saying that he thought God had a new name for each person. So I prayed, and I thought God was telling me that he had called me Chosen. Except I wasn't sure. (I'd have gotten along swell with Thomas--you know, doubting Thomas.) So I decided to keep praying about it. Except that my prayer life hasn't exactly been exemplary and, when I did remember to pray, I very rarely remembered to ask about being re-named. Until... ...one night at Alpha-Link. (I'm in this program at my church called Alpha... and Alpha-Link is something my church has put together as a follow-on. Each week, we have pastors and elders come to do the teaching on their favorite topics. Which is awesome because they're almost always passionate about it.) A couple weeks ago, the topic was prayer. And some of the things the speaker (Wanda) was saying just really hit home... essentially about how most people, after some initial trepidation, don't need much help or prompting in the speaking part of prayer... but that most of us are terrible about listening. So her talk was focused more on practical ways to listen to God. I felt God nudging me throughout her talk as various points came up, and realized there were a lot of things I could do to make myself open to listening to Him... and that it wasn't being unbelieving (necessarily) to ask Him to confirm what I thought He was saying, essentially, that it was ok to ask Him to clarify so that I know it's not my own wandering mind supplying "answers" rather than Him. At the end of Wanda's talk, she, too, invited us to pray. Hmmm... there's a lot more to this, but I think for right now, I'll just address the portion about the name of this blog. When I started praying, the thing that popped into my mind was that song... specifically half of the chorus line, starting with "You have called me chosen..." Except that it was in the opposite form: "I have called you chosen, for my kingdom, unashamed to call you my own. You are my beloved." Which seemed like pretty concrete confirmation to me. Especially since we haven't sung that song at church in... oh, at least three months, probably more like six... so it's not like we'd just heard it recently for it to pop into my mind like that. Taking that in context with me having been abused (I'm sure I'll go into that more at some point), the whole reason I started this blog is to try to work out the kinks between the left-over habits and thought-patterns and how far God's brought me... How many days until finals? What was one good thing that happened today? Miscellaney: Tell me what you think. I Am Your Beloved ~ ~ ~ Mom's Quilt Most recent: The REAL surprise party - Monday, Jul. 11, 2005 Still not here - Wednesday, Jul. 06, 2005 Moved - Thursday, Jun. 30, 2005 I survived - Thursday, Jun. 23, 2005 Go see her. Now. - Thursday, Jun. 02, 2005 |
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