God “loves all of us, without any limits or conditions.” These were some of the first words spoken by Cardinal Robert Prevost — now Pope Leo XIV — as he addressed the world after being elected the 267th pope of the Catholic Church.

These words — of God’s unending love for us — seem fitting. A new lyrical devotional written by Catholic worship singer Sarah Kroger is guiding readers on a journey of learning to love themselves as beloved children of God.

Belovedness: Overcoming Your Inner Critic was inspired by Kroger’s song Belovedness, whose lyrics focus on overcoming negative thoughts, self-doubts and learning to love who God made.

“I released a song called Belovedness in 2019 that was kind of centered around my own journey of rediscovering my identity as a beloved child of God, and that song kind of took on a life of its own,” Kroger told the Register in an interview. “I would receive so many messages from people saying how much it had impacted their life and helped them to find healing and restoration in their own journey with identity, and I kind of just realized like this is a lot deeper than just a song.”

Thanks to these messages, Kroger decided to expand on the lyrics of the song by writing a devotional; in it, she takes each line of the song and digs deeper into its meaning and aims to inspire readers to take an introspective journey on how they view themselves — with the end goal of viewing oneself as a beloved child of God.

Each chapter of the lyrical devotional focuses on a different line of the song and includes a reflection, questions to ask, a Scripture verse to pray with and meditate on, and a closing prayer.

Kroger explained that while on the outside, one would have thought she had her life all together, “behind the scenes, I just kept hitting wall after wall after wall. I was constantly comparing myself to other people, constantly tearing myself down. If I messed up at work, it was immediately this negative self-talk tape loop going in my head and I was just like a shell of myself in so many ways.”

It wasn’t until Kroger read Life of the Beloved by Henri Nouwen that she had the “light-bulb moment.”

“I just realized I’m living out of lies. I’m living out of these narratives that are not the truth — and how do I free myself from this pattern of living? This can’t be the way that God intended for me to live,” she explained. “Jesus says to us, ‘I came that you might have life and have it abundantly’ — and for me, I was like, ‘This is not abundant life.’”

Kroger brought her journey to a writing session — and from it her song Belovedness was written. It was one of the quickest songs she’s ever written and felt like “a download from above,” she recalled.

When Kroger first released the song, she didn’t think anyone would understand or relate to her experience. It ended up being the exact opposite. The singer has received hundreds of messages thanking her for the song, with listeners sharing how much it has helped them in their own journeys of learning to love themselves as beloved children of God.

One experience that particularly stands out to Kroger was when a woman approached her after a concert, with tears in her eyes, unable to even express what she was trying to say.

“We just looked at each other and just kind of nodded our heads, and it was like we were just war buddies. It felt like we understand what it’s like to be at war with ourselves and to kind of go through that and battle through that and get on the other side and learn more about ourselves,” Kroger recalled.

She added, “So the book set me on this journey of uprooting my identity from the lies and false narratives that I believed about myself and re-rooting myself and my identity as a beloved child of God, and it was hard. It still is hard to this day. It’s a daily choice. It’s a daily kind of showing up to say ‘Yes’ to that.”

Now, Kroger hopes that her new book will have the same effect on readers and that it will serve as a stepping stone on people’s journeys “for real healing to happen and for people to dive deeper into the beauty of their identity as beloved children of God. There are no quick fixes in this life, but I think that this book can be a step on that journey for sure.”

“I didn’t ever think that I could live as freely as I do now, and it’s taken years. It continues to be a journey for me, but I’ve gotten to the point where I feel like I actually like who God has made me to be. I can actually say that and embrace that and live that out,” she said, adding: “It doesn’t mean that I’m any less aware of my limitations. … It doesn’t mean that I’m not trying to be the best person that I can be … and recognize that I am a sinner, but that doesn’t define me anymore, and it used to define me.”

She emphasized, “It’s totally possible to receive healing for this and to see yourself even a glimpse of the way that God sees you.”