Chosen

Daily Gratitude Year 5-Day 36: Today, I am grateful for the joy in being chosen. 

Being chosen is the best feeling. I am the girl who was always picked last in PE. If my friends were picking a team to win, they didn't have to worry about our friendship if I wasn't first, second or third draft pick. I was available until late in the pickings. I might not have been picked last... but close... very close. 

In love - there is a thrill in being chosen out of all other choices. To have someone commit to not just your great traits... but your imperfections, too. Anyone can love your good offerings. But, when love chooses you knowing you have some faults...but they still want to take life's adventure with you by their side... that is the free fall we know as falling in love. No one is perfect... but "perfect for me" is just right. 

To add Christ, as the third strand to the cord, strengthens the relationship and helps us love better. 

A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.-Ecclesiastes 4:12

To be adopted is not just an act of rescue... it is being chosen. My friends Kim Meyering Williams and Melanie Hale taught me the true joy of being chosen in love to be a part of a family forever. They wore their chosen status like a tiara. They wore it well. We grew up in the day you didn't talk about adoption much... they changed my understanding with their open sharing. 

Adoption is a beautiful gift. For the one who gives up a child up for a better, safer and more protected life... and for the ones who receive a child to fill an empty place in their hearts. Adopted children are loved no less than children of our womb. They might be loved a little differently... because of the wait and the wondering if they would ever hear a child call them Mama or Dad. Every child is precious. 

Adoption is not just a celebration of a birth, but the added celebration of a life claimed for new life in a forever family. 

That is how our Lord loves us. He knows we might come with some bumps and bruises and... some history. Still, if open the eyes of our heart we will know that makes us no less loved. He places a crown on our heads and calls us wanted, chosen, loved... and home. 

having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you -Ephesians 1:18

Yes. Yes. Yes. Chosen... forgiven... adopted ... Redeemed and given the inheritance born out of love. He becomes our home and he is always with us. He is enough. He is our vision. He is our courage. To come to him with an offering of gratitude is a natural response to love and being loved in return. 

Today, I am grateful for the joy in being chosen.