Some years ago, I was in a bad patch in my life, struggling with what at the time I considered a major loss. When I picked up my journal to pour out my feelings to the One “unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid,” I heard the words: “You are precious . . . and I love you.” I was stunned to see those words flowing from my pen onto the paper. Even more surprising was the fact that every day for the next six months, I heard the very same thing as I used my journal to deal with my grief. I didn’t realize then that the message came from scripture, from the passage in Isaiah we read today. Even now after all these years, every time I read these words I feel affirmed and comforted all over again, knowing deep within that God is speaking to me, calling me by name, enfolding me in Love here and now.

Do you know that God is calling you by name this very minute saying, “You are precious . . . and I love you”? Believe it! It is the message for each of us and for all of us, for “everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” I don’t know how we can have missed it so often. We seem to think we are too unworthy or something, as if we were somehow more powerful than God. The Holy One waits patiently for us to open the ears of our hearts to hear the divine message of Love, to desire to experience the enfolding embrace of the Beloved drawing us ever closer into union with the Divine.

May we ever be aware that we truly are God’s daughters and sons and that nothing can separate us from God’s love.