Chosen

{picture by Charlie Mackesy}

I remember it like it was yesterday.  Her soft yellow hair in curls, tucked behind her large dated glasses.  The warmth that exuded from her smile.  Her motherly bosom that had provided a safe place to lean into.  The joy in her twinkling eyes.  Eyes that had seen their own heartache and loss.  Eyes that had wept for a buried husband. Eyes that had looked into the soul of motherless babes.  She was the hands and feet of Jesus and the first adult outside my home to tell me that she loved me.  Unconditionally. And I believed her.  Her name was Penny.

I was sixteen years old and at the mercy of the world’s opinions.  Sense of self, fragile, in vulnerable pieces, hoping not to be dropped and shattered into even more.  I gazed up at the intramural list.  My grade ten self looking for his name.  A long one that I couldn’t pronounce, but wanted to know.  It was one month later that I fell in love for the first time.  He brought me home to meet her.  The woman who said she loved my tattered self, my fragile heart. She embraced me as we said goodbye, that time and countless more.

She made me feel chosen.

It’s been 15 years since I’ve seen Penny, but my adolescent self holds her in my heart as a piece of my history and as someone who truly taught me about what it meant to know Christ.  Someone who loved deeply, fought when it mattered, forgave daily and brought the truth of the matter into each and every moment.  She, without knowing, is single handedly, one of the most influential people in my life. Because, she made me feel chosen.  Chosen as a daughter that she loved just because.  Chosen as accepted, for no reason other than I was.  And later, chosen by God, because he sought me out.  Relentlessly.  Tirelessly, patiently.  Even years after I kept running.

Do you know that your fragile self is chosen?  Really.  Unabashedly.  Unreservedly chosen? Do you know that the tough week you’ve had feeling lost in a sea of faces means much to him?  Everything in fact, because he chooses you.  And longs to dance with you. 

I know it’s hard.  In the stress of life.  In the pressures, and the mire you are slugging through, to believe it.  To believe you are remembered.  To know that your heart is being actively pursued by the one who orchestrated its very beat.  My prayer for you today is that you feel it.

I pray you feel and know that you, my dear, are Chosen.

~Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.  His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.  And this gave him great pleasure. ~Ephesians 1:4-5

{this entry is in response to Heart to Heart with Holley's weekly theme of "In God's Heart I am Chosen". You can check out her blog at www.holleygerth.com Great stuff!}