Not Forgotten

Our Savior has purchased our lives by His own blood, and we belong to Him. We can possess a sense of affirmation through our knowledge of Christ's love for us. 1st Corinthians 6 states:
19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.

Perhaps during your childhood, you had the experience of not being "picked."  Waiting for your name to be called when teams were being selected on the ballfield.  Auditioning for a play and not making the callback. Interviewing for a job and being rejected.

Certainly that is not necessarily everybody's experience, but I do think that we desire to be included, to be part of the team, to succeed, to belong. 

Bridget went to an audition one time - out of the four siblings, she seemed to enjoy performing the most.  She didn't make the cut...but two of her siblings did.  A Movieguide article quotes her:

She said, “I had a lot of work with my braces, and so my mom was a little confused and didn’t understand why I wasn’t chosen that day, and Iris [the talent manager] just said, ‘She’s going to need some work, but bring her back,’ and so for a mom to have to tell one of the kids, the child who really wanted it, ‘It’s just not your time right now, but we’re going to come back’…”

The article quotes from The Washington Stand, which reports that Bridget asked the Lord this question:  “Did you forget about me?” She said that God spoke to her through Jeremiah 29:11 and stated, “God was telling me something,” adding, “I heard Him say: ‘Bridget, all of those years you’ve thought that I’ve forgotten you, you’ve thought that I’ve overlooked you, and I’ve never put you in those opportunities that you wanted. But I have bigger plans for you, and I just saved you and your family from a major, major car accident. I have plans for you, Bridget. But you’ve got to trust me that it’s in my timing that I will show you where I need you and what I want you to be doing.’”

Her brother and sister went on to become successful actors, but God had a plan for Bridget. She related in a video that their parents, who have been married 55 years now, separated: “They talked of divorce, but a lot of people think that...we all grew up in a Christian home and we did not. We did not know the Lord, but God had such a plan and a purpose and His hand over our family that He knew how He was going to be using us, you know in for Him, for His glory down the road, and so He kept our family together.”

Things began to change as Bridget's brother, Kirk, became a Christian and began to share Christ with his family.  You know her brother as Kirk Cameron; the other successful sibling is Candace Cameron Bure.  Bridget Cameron Ridenour is the author of a book called, Overlooked.  The Washington Stand article related:

No matter who you are, or what you go through, “Each one of us has a beautiful, beautiful story that’s so different from anybody else’s. And God writes a better story than any of us ever could. We just need to give Him the pen and let him write.” But as Ridenour emphasized, we easily allow ourselves to think we can write a better story. We often think that God doesn’t care about us when He doesn’t answer us right away. But when we focus on what God doesn’t do, we forget what He does do.

The article added:

Today, Ridenour is traveling and sharing her testimony and the truth of God’s goodness with the world. “God has a plan and a purpose for everybody,” she concluded. “And we just have to trust and have faith that God will show those plans to us if it’s His will.” But His plans are certainly “bigger than we could ever imagine.” As author Vaneetha Rendall Risner once wrote, “This is the most precious answer God can give us: wait. It makes us cling to him rather than to an outcome. God knows what I need; I do not. He sees the future; I cannot. His perspective is eternal; mine is not. He will give me what is best for me when it is best for me.”

The good news for us as believers is that, yes, we have been picked!!  God has chosen each us of to be saved, and Jesus died for your sins and mine.  And, oh, yes, He has plans for us.  The Bible tells us that we belong to Him, we are a child of God, made in the image of God, and that we have been adopted into His family. 

So, when we struggle with self-doubt or rejection, we can turn to the One whose Word tells us that we have been "accepted in the Beloved,"  according to Ephesians 1. We can rely on the strength and direction of the Lord, so that we might fulfill the call He has placed in our lives.  He will complete that good work that He has started. 

We have not been forgotten - even though we may be tempted to forget Him. And, that's the story of God's grace; His Word shows us His great unconditional, unfailing love to a people who rejected Him, who sinned against God.  If we have sinned, we know that He is faithful and just to forgive us - He wants us to run to Him, not away, when we feel forgotten, so that we might be forgiven.