“As he also says in Hosea: 'I will call those who were not my people, 'My people,' and I will call her who was unloved, 'My beloved.'"

Two months ago, I was sitting at a cabin in the woods, surrounded by girls I hardly knew.

As I was listening to the speaker, Beth, I began investigating my surroundings. My eyes went over the maple wood beams, the hanging lights and rested on a poster on the front door, filled with names.

Daughter of the king, redeemed, and child were just a few of the ones written on the corners. But the one that held my attention was the one directly in the center:

Beloved.

Now I’d heard this word before. I’d read the book by Toni Morrison, and I knew what it meant. But for some reason, that day it was like I was reading it for the very first time.

Beloved.

Be loved.

And my mind brought to memory a bible verse I’d heard before in passing, Romans 9:25.

“As he also says in Hosea: 'I will call those who were not my people, 'My people,' and I will call her who was unloved, 'My beloved.'"

To be unloved, is to be in a state neglect. Unwanted, unvalued and abandoned.

But to be beloved, is to not just be loved at a surface level, but to be deeply loved, precious, cherished, and treasured. The very name beloved, is a command, to be in a state of being loved. Not to do, but just be.

Beloved in hebrew was limited chiefly to two words and their derivatives: 'ahebh, "to breathe" or "long for," and in the Old Testament found, 26 out of 42 times, in Solomon's Song of Love.

To be beloved is to exist, to breathe.

To be beloved is to be longed for, to cherish.

If one looks at the word beloved in Greek, then the word becomes agapetos, which is primarily used to describe love in the New Testament. Agapetos usually describes “one who is in a very special relationship with another” in secular Greek, and is used mostly of a child, especially an only child to whom all the love of his parents is given.

We are called to be loved as children, fully and wholly, by a father.

And the root of agapetos is agape, which means love. Not only love, but the highest form of love possible; the love of God for man and of man for God. Agape embraces a universal, unconditional love that transcends and serves regardless of circumstances.

The first seven times God uses beloved in the New Testament, he’s talking about Jesus. Every time, he calls him his beloved son, with whom he is well pleased. And then the rest of the New Testament, he’s referring to us.

As someone who had never felt unconditionally loved and accepted, accepting the love of God as something tangible has always been hard for me. I knew it was there, but I’d never felt it before.

But on that February evening, for the very first time, I felt called by name, and that name was beloved.

A name was written on my heart, and that name was beloved.

"I am my beloved’s and he is mine." -- (Song of Solomon 6:3)