It was just past five in the morning on a cold January day when my sister called me and told me she’d had a baby. I remember the way the sun was rising ever so slowly as I drove across the bridge to the hospital.

Before I could enter my sister’s hospital room, the nurse stopped me in the hallway. 

“Visiting hours aren’t until 7:30,” the nurse said. It was 5:30 in the morning. 

“My sister just had a baby,” I confidently said.

“You should come back in two hours,” she said. 

But I was a woman on a mission. Nothing was stopping me. “My sister just had a baby, and her room is right down this hallway, and I am going to see them both this minute,” I told her. It was a mixture of exhaustion and annoyance that I saw in her eyes, but she sidestepped me and I waltzed on through. Admittedly, it was not my finest moment. 

I entered the room and caught a glimpse of my nephew. I could hardly breathe. I sat on the edge of my sister’s hospital bed, holding the little boy she’d just given birth to. I couldn’t stop staring at him — he was a magnet, and I was fully attached. I stared at his impossibly small frame, the heavy bags under his newborn eyes—trying my best to memorize every tiny part of him.

I thought of the ocean, the way you can never see the end of it, the way it stretches on, almost infinitely, and I thought, “The love I have for this baby is an ocean. I can’t see the end of it.”

I had never understood love the way I understood it that day. But still, something inside me waned. I am not a mother, so I don’t know what a mother’s love feels like. I am not a wife, so I don’t know what it feels to love as a wife does. 

There are so many times when I’ve let those two labels that I don’t have — wife or mother — make me feel as if I’m disqualified from understanding true love. I see women who have kids or a husband and I can be tempted to think that they know real love and I don’t. 

But that’s not right. The truth is I can give true love and know true love because I am truly loved.

I can’t remember the first time I knew it for a fact. There isn’t one moment I can trace back in my history — no exact point when I felt loved for the first time.

Instead, I have pockets of moments. 

Like when my dad read to me as a girl before bed, the timbre of his voice coaxing my eyelids to close.  

Or when my sister threw a giant surprise party for me when I was seventeen and going to Rwanda for two months. 

Or when my brother-in-law bought me flowers for Valentine’s Day the first year he and my sister got married. 

Or when my dad gave me FaceTime cooking lessons when I was on a college internship with no idea how to make dinner.

Or every time I talk to my mom on the phone, hearing her on the other end, always listening to her finish the call with, “I love you.” 

Each person points me toward my identity — beloved, just as I am.

I don’t need to be a wife or a mother to understand love. I’m not disqualified from knowing true love because I am single. 

I simply need to peel back the layers of my identity revealing the core of who I am — someone who is loved. Not just by my family but by my Father. 

Over and over in the Gospels, Jesus points us to His — to our — Father. He called Him “Abba.” The name Abba is deeply personal and tender, reminding me of the way a tired young child curls up on her dad’s lap because she feels safe. 

We have a deeply personal Father who is tender toward us, who loves us with every fiber of His being. Our Abba. A Father who formed you with hands of love and tenderness, crafting you with purpose and intention, filling you with courage and creativity. 

A Father who calls you beloved.

Like Paul said, nothing in this whole wide world can separate you from the love of Jesus (Romans 8:38-39). Or like John said, we can love others because Jesus loved us first (1 John 4:19).

Nothing can strip you of your identity. Nothing can take away your belovedness. And nothing — nothing — can disqualify you from His love.

At the end of each day, this truth remains: You can give true love and know true love because you are truly loved.

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Each of us needs reminders of our belovedness. Loved By Me does exactly that. It earnestly reminds each child of their capacity for bravery, kindness, and the light they offer the world. But most of all, it calls attention to their identity — a child who is beloved, exactly as they are.

Through whimsical, heartfelt words and beautiful watercolor illustrations, Loved By Me takes an honest look at how life can be scary and how sometimes we can feel forgotten or unseen. Using empathy and honesty, Aliza reminds you and your child that even on our hardest days, we are loved.

This is the message we all need to hear, and to spread that message, we want to give away FIVE copies of Loved By Me to five of you! {GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED} To enter, leave a comment telling us to whom you’d like to gift this book!

Giveaway closes at 11:59pm on February 19, 2021 CST. Open to US and Canadian addresses only. 

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