{"id":1739,"date":"2009-04-27T08:50:56","date_gmt":"2009-04-27T08:50:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2009\/04\/dare-to-love-as-a-child-of-god.html"},"modified":"2009-04-27T08:50:56","modified_gmt":"2009-04-27T08:50:56","slug":"dare-to-love-as-a-child-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/04\/dare-to-love-as-a-child-of-god.html","title":{"rendered":"Dare to Love … as a Child of God"},"content":{"rendered":"

A friend of mine wrote the following meditation, and I was so touched by it because I have been trying to see myself lately as a loved child of God … as a flower in the hand of the creator … instead of as a person with all these illnesses and conditions.<\/p>\n

He writes:<\/p>\n

Dare to love…\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dare to love those who see you as the special angel you are to them.
\nDare to love those who wait for your next breath, your next smile.
\nDare to love those who see the perfect you inside the imperfect reality.
\nDare to love those who care what happens in the next moment of your life
\nDare to love those who God shows you and those to whom you were shown
\nDare to love those who know you and love you anyway as well as those who love you and know you anyway
\nEach soul you touch is a person who loves you, even if they don’t act that way. Maybe it’s fear or boundaries or rules or lost hope that keeps them from showing love. But fear can’t chain the heart. Only a curtain can cover it but rest assured it’s there for you, always.
\nDare to love … dare to love.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Spiritual author Henri Nouwen articulates the same message in his reflection, “Accept Your Identity as a Child of God”:<\/p>\n

Your true identity is as a child of God. This is the identity you have to accept. Once you have claimed it and settled in it, you can live in a world that gives you much joy as well as pain. You can receive the praise as well as the blame that comes to you as an opportunity for strengthening your basic identity, because the identity that makes you free is anchored beyond all human praise and blame. You belong to God, and it is as a child of God that you are sent into the world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To read more Beyond Blue, go to http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue<\/a>, and to get to Group Beyond Blue, a support group at Beliefnet Community, click here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

To subscribe to “Beyond Blue” click here.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"rss.gif\"<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A friend of mine wrote the following meditation, and I was so touched by it because I have been trying to see myself lately as a loved child of God … as a flower in the hand of the creator … instead of as a person with all these illnesses and conditions. He writes: Dare…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration-and-prayer","category-mental-health"],"yoast_head":"\nDare to Love ... as a Child of God - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/04\/dare-to-love-as-a-child-of-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dare to Love ... as a Child of God - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A friend of mine wrote the following meditation, and I was so touched by it because I have been trying to see myself lately as a loved child of God … as a flower in the hand of the creator … instead of as a person with all these illnesses and conditions. He writes: Dare…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/04\/dare-to-love-as-a-child-of-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-04-27T08:50:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/imgs\/rss.gif\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Dare to Love ... as a Child of God - Beyond Blue","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/04\/dare-to-love-as-a-child-of-god.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Dare to Love ... as a Child of God - Beyond Blue","og_description":"A friend of mine wrote the following meditation, and I was so touched by it because I have been trying to see myself lately as a loved child of God … as a flower in the hand of the creator … instead of as a person with all these illnesses and conditions. He writes: Dare…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/04\/dare-to-love-as-a-child-of-god.html","og_site_name":"Beyond Blue","article_published_time":"2009-04-27T08:50:56+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/imgs\/rss.gif"}],"author":"Beyond Blue","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/04\/dare-to-love-as-a-child-of-god.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/04\/dare-to-love-as-a-child-of-god.html","name":"Dare to Love ... as a Child of God - Beyond Blue","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/04\/dare-to-love-as-a-child-of-god.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/04\/dare-to-love-as-a-child-of-god.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/imgs\/rss.gif","datePublished":"2009-04-27T08:50:56+00:00","dateModified":"2009-04-27T08:50:56+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/47318cdf8063cc052eccff0c99db4e75"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/04\/dare-to-love-as-a-child-of-god.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/04\/dare-to-love-as-a-child-of-god.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/04\/dare-to-love-as-a-child-of-god.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/imgs\/rss.gif","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/imgs\/rss.gif"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/04\/dare-to-love-as-a-child-of-god.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Dare to Love … as a Child of God"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/","name":"Beyond Blue","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Therese J. Borchard","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/47318cdf8063cc052eccff0c99db4e75","name":"Beyond Blue","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/45c\/45c6e619a20a364bd981e9dda64eaa02x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/45c\/45c6e619a20a364bd981e9dda64eaa02x96.jpg","caption":"Beyond Blue"},"description":"Therese J. Borchard writes the daily blog, Beyond Blue, on Beliefnet.com. She is the author of Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression & Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes and The Pocket Therapist. You may find her at her personal blog, her website, or you may follow her on Twitter @thereseborchard.","sameAs":["http:\/\/thereseborchard.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/author\/tborchard"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1739\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}