namaste = I honor the God that is in you.

Yesterday, I decided to do a little experiment / bless random people's days, and I made this really cute and pretty encouragement cards. And so I ventured out to give them to unsuspecting people... and overall was just made to feel rejected. Most of the people I spoke to met me in anger or outright rejection. I returned to my office after my work with a very deep sadness, but when I was reflecting later on in the car going home, I realized that the sadness isn't because I was rejected, but because my heart mourns for all of the broken hearts America. We live in a culture were affirmation is so rare, people struggle with their identities, and people do not know what true love is, that when they are affirmed, when they do receive love, they are often unable to accept and receive it. But I just think that's just not how it's supposed to be! God wanted so much more for us!

We live in a culture where gossip is the norm, where making fun of someone and joking around in a not-so-nice-way about them is culturally acceptable, where we use demeaning words to refer to each other. We live in a culture where inner city kids are told they won't graduate from high school, where girls are told they aren't pretty if they don't look like the celebrities, where people call homeless men and women disguisting and worthless. We live in a culture where people are murdered by words every single day. I am no exception. Father, forgive me for the ways I have murdered others by my words.

I remembered a word that was in one of Madeliene L'Engle's journals, and that word is "Namaste," which means "I honor the God that is in you." Just imagine if we walked around saying that. Imagine if we walked around affirming that each person we run into is created in the image of our beautiful Creator. If we affirmed that each person is the beloved child of God. It would be a very different world.

And yes, maybe I am too much of an idealist, but my heart cries out for this. I hear the voice of the lover of our souls wooing me gently, telling me that my identity is built on his foundations and on what he has done for me, how he became sin for me and became the Word incarnated for me, how he died on the cross for me that I may be reconciled with my Heavenly Father, that I may be made perfect , beautiful, and radiant for Him, in Him, and through Him. I hear his voice calling out to his people who are in pain and who wonder if they are worth anything at all, and it grieves me that so many cannot hear that still, small whisper of a voice of the one who has loved them since the beginning of time

We who have been called and who know of these truths have not been good about affirming it in others, and I am no exception. But I don't know about you... I want God to transform that part of me. I want to see God heal people in the world aroudn me. I want to see the nations rejoicing because they know who they are, worshipping a Lord who showed us the ultimate affirmation that we are loved, and they, in turn, going forth into this world to proclaim what is truly good news.