Owning our Identity

So as I continue to sift through craigslist categories and endless ministry board postings...ect, I've also been reading.
Alot.
And lately I have stumbled upon a previously unknown (to me at least) author.  Henri Nouwen.
This week I found "The Life of the Beloved" on my public library's sparse Christian non-fiction section.
Curious, I brought it home and started reading it only to be deeply impacted by the first few pages of this small book.
Identity
That's the book's main focus.  Not only understanding who we are, but owning it and living securely in our identity for all facets of our life.  And who are we?  This book answers-"the beloved."
Beloved of God.  Child of God.  Dearly loved.
But here's what I've been discovering during this life "in between" time of mine-it is so extremely easy to develop spiritual amnesia.  To forget who I am.  To start gradually listening more and more to the voices that tell me the opposite.  To start unconsciously or consciously taking these lies to be truth.  Nouwen calls this "self rejection."  And in listening more to these voices that lie rather than to the whisper that calls me "the Beloved daughter", I start succumbing and falling victim more and more to my circumstances and my emotions.  My emotions that seem to tell me that I deserve nothing good or even spectacular because I am convinced that I'm pathetic and am failing at my own life.  My circumstances that seem to tell me that I am doomed and worthless because I am unemployed and struggling with what to do next in my life.  It's like I stick my fingers in my ears and listen to those voices, because sometimes it's easier than listening to the soft whisper inside that calls me "Beloved."
But what is true?
What side 'wins'?
Who am I?
I AM His "beloved."  I am His daughter.  I AM secure, watched over, loved, accepted, forgiven, cleansed, redeemed.  I AM a new creation,a member of the body of Christ, a temple of the Holy Spirit.  And while I am an alien and a stranger to this world, I AM a citizen of heaven (and mystery of all mysteries, I am actually also "seated with Christ in heavenly places").
I am a friend of God and I am hidden IN Christ with God.  I am a light in this dark world and I am a partaker of a heavenly calling. I am a member of the bride of Christ and I am a true worshiper who will one day see Him face to face.  All of this...........and I am His "Beloved."
This is who I am, and yet if I do not own this, remember this and STAY in this identity, I drift back to the worthless identity that the voices of the world and the enemy speak.  It's like the analogy I once heard from Derek Levendusky: a princess who has forgotten who she is and is living in filth and squalor.  I have to LIVE in this identity as the beloved.
Or to quote Nouwen: "Becoming the Beloved is pulling the truth revealed to me from above down into the ordinariness of what I am, in fact thinking of, talking about and doing from hour to hour."
Now I haven't figured it all out yet, but this requires a certain boldness.  A certain refusal to accept the lies.
Despite circumstances, failures, emotions, set backs, weaknesses or situations.
You and I ARE "the Beloved."
And focusing on this, on who I AM in Christ, makes everything else....all the stresses and fears and anxieties about the future and my life....seem to fade into the background enough where I can feel that unexplainable peace that He gives.
So, please, with me, won't you choose to this day remember who you are.  And own it.
You are His "Beloved."