This week’s post is coming a little early – usually I post on Mondays, but I wanted to offer up these words this morning.

Valentine’s Day can bring a certain ache for many people.

Deep down within us is a fierce longing and ache to be known, to be cherished, and to matter.

We don’t just want to belong; we want to be someone’s beloved. We want to be the apple of someone’s eye, the delight of someone’s day, the joy of someone’s thought, and the needed part of someone’s embrace.

There is nothing wrong with that – it is how we were created. You and I were created to be someone’s beloved.

The problem is many of us look for that ache to be fulfilled in the here and now – we want to be a boyfriend’s beloved, a girlfriend’s beloved, a husband’s beloved, a wife’s beloved, a parent’s beloved, even a friend’s beloved. Some of us do find that ache fulfilled, in part, in the here and now. We are a spouse’s beloved partner, a parent’s beloved child, a friend’s beloved safe place. But none of us are the beloved in every single category in our lives in a way that fills our deepest desires.

That’s because being the beloved from someone here on planet earth only goes so deep. It only fills the surface of a crack that runs down to the depths of our soul.

And can I make this clarification: you can be someone’s spouse but still not be their beloved. Sadly, there can be a vast difference between being married and being beloved.

So no matter how it seems, married or single, most of us stand on the fringes of circles wondering why it seems like we are the only one who does not fit in or is not someone’s beloved in a certain category of our lives.

If this is you today, I want you to hear something: You are not alone, no matter how on the fringes you feel. You need to know that most people feel exactly like you do – wondering where they belong, where they fit in, and why it feels like they are the only one who doesn’t.

But I want you to hear something else today: You are the beloved.

You are God’s beloved. You are the apple of His eye, caught up in the warmth of His embrace.

You may not be the beloved in the way you wanted. But you are the beloved in the way that is needed.

Because being God’s beloved means that His love fills the ache down to the deepest places in your soul that He alone knows how to fill.

In fact, the very lack you feel is the opening He needs and looks for to get in. The wound in your life, the hole you want some other person to fill is the God-made hole He is wanting to fill. As the saying goes, the wound is not only where the light gets in, the wound is where God gets in.

So today, don’t focus on why you are not so and so’s beloved – because let me tell you something – spouses fail you, friends fail you, parents fail you, children fail you, and you fail others in every single category of your life as well. We can’t help it. With sin’s deep stain and curse, failure is who we are and it’s what we do.

But God will never fail you. Never. In fact, the deepest, darkest holes in your life are there so you will look up to Him.

You are His beloved.

YOU are His beloved.

You ARE His beloved.

You are HIS beloved.

You are His BELOVED.

Turn it over every which way. Soak in the nuances of every single word. And let His love fill your cup today, no matter who you are or whose you are. For you are God’s beloved, and His love is enough.

“I am my beloved’s, and His desire is for me.” Song of Solomon 7:10