Adoration – the act of adoring – to regard with the utmost esteem, love, and respect. Honor.

There are no half-measures to this concept! We are all in with adoration. I am grateful not only for the ability to adore someone else, but for the gift of being adored. Many of us are great at GIVING love, GIVING help, GIVING of ourselves, but if we don’t have the grace to RECEIVE it as well, giving can become a control issue – a way to keep people at arms length, letting them see only the ‘giving’ side of us.

Many know that I lovingly refer to my husband as my ‘slayer-of-dragons’ but most do not know why… years ago we were in a small (church) group, talking about marriage and spouses. My husband shared that I had not only told him that I loved him, but that I adored him. He repeated again “she ADORES ME!” at which point he sat up straight, swept the room with his eyes as if searching for something or someone, and said “where is that dragon you want me to slay?”

Just knowing he was adored made him sit taller in his seat and feel like he could tackle any challenge. That is a lot of power for one word.

Do I know, understand, and accept that GOD adores me, even on bad days… because HE says I am worthy, not because I deem it so? How much more can I do, dream, and achieve in my life because I am safe and secure in the knowledge that I am adored by God?

Do we provide that security for our children? Do they know that they are adored? Can they dream bigger dreams because they are confident in the knowledge that we regard them with the utmost esteem, love, and respect? Or do we tear them down with little jibes and snipes? Do we crush their hopes as unrealistic, and laugh at their dreams of slaying their own dragons, telling them dragons are not real?

Do our spouses know that we are in their corner no matter what? Or do we fall into the trap of fearing that if we somehow commit to them verbally they might not return the sentiment, or worse yet, that we have now let ourselves be vulnerable and they are somehow AHEAD of us in the grand score-keeping game of life. Do we play it safe to avoid potential rejection? Or can we take a cue from God, from Grace, from the concept of ‘gift freely given’ and put ourselves out there regardless?

My gratitude today is that I am able to adore – and to be adored. And, yes, full disclosure, that ability came as the result of the crushing pain of trying to play it safe and do things my way – confronted with a personal crisis (self-created) that I could no longer postpone or evade, I turned to God in a time of pain and need and was given the gift of unconditional love – which had always been there for the taking. I am adored 🙂