Highly favored

I used to think being highly favored meant being chosen for something easy, something beautiful, something that would make sense in the end. I thought favor looked like doors swinging wide open, like blessings spilling over, like everything finally coming together.

But then I learned what it really meant.

highly favored doesn’t mean special. It doesn’t mean strong, or qualified, or deserving. In the Greek, it means to be completely surrounded and covered by grace. To be wrapped up in it, drowned in it, carried by it. It’s not a title of pride, it’s a promise of presence.

Grace becomes the air you breathe when the weight of life presses too hard on your chest. Grace becomes the ground beneath your trembling feet when the earth gives way. Grace becomes the invisible arms that hold you together when grief tries to tear you apart.

It’s only used twice in all of Scripture, once for Mary, and once for us.

Mary, trembling before the angel’s words.

Us, trembling before the unknown of what lies ahead.

Both surrounded by grace.

Both accepted in the Beloved.

And that changes everything.

Because favor doesn’t always look like comfort.

Sometimes favor looks like carrying something no one else understands.

Sometimes favor looks like surrendering your reputation, your control, your plan, your very heart.

Sometimes favor looks like tears on the floor, whispering “Behold the handmaid of the Lord” through trembling lips.

Grace doesn’t always spare you from the storm, sometimes it simply keeps you from drowning in it.

And maybe that’s what “highly favored” really means:

Not that I’ll be spared the ache,

but that I’ll be sustained through it.

Not that I’ll be celebrated,

but that I’ll be carried.

Webster says favor is unfair partiality, approval, support, the liking of someone more than others.

But God’s favor doesn’t look like unfairness, it looks like unmerited mercy.

It looks like being chosen not because you can handle it, but because His grace will handle you.

I’m realizing that being highly favored doesn’t make me immune to pain—it means I’ll find grace in every ounce of it. It means when my strength fails, grace will surround. When I can’t stand, grace will lift. When I don’t know what to pray, grace will whisper what I cannot say.

To be highly favored is to be carried by Grace Himself.

I’m clinging to that.

Because I’m tired of trying to prove that I’m enough.

I’m tired of thinking that favor is earned.

Maybe it’s never been about being good enough, strong enough,

maybe it’s just about being held enough.

So here I am again saying the only words that make sense

anymore:“Behold the handmaid of the Lord.”

Whatever comes next, may I be found surrounded…

not by perfection,

not by applause,

but by Grace that carries me through the fire

and still calls me favored.