This was a forward sent by my dear Aunt L –<\/p>\n
I know that God loves me from an intellectual standpoint.<\/p>\n
I knew that He would think well of me when I did right and would somehow tolerate me when I did wrong. But somehow I couldn’t understand the unconditional love that the Bible says defines my Lord and Savior, the kind that doesn’t have strings attached, the kind that doesn’t depend on good behavior or a perfect report card.<\/p>\n
For about a week, I prayed going to and from work. Then one particular day, I came home feeling very harried. I struggled to get the groceries in from the car and remain pleasant to my neighbor Tiffany and her 4-year-old son Jaelon, who were preparing to leave.<\/p>\n
And then it happened.<\/p>\n
After several trips to the house, I was finally down to my last few bags of groceries. I was heading for the door, when I heard little Jaelon ask in his gentle voice, “Can I give you a hug?”<\/p>\n
I was flabbergasted that a child who didn’t even know my name, who had never spent time at my house, who I had passed day after day without saying “hello” wanted to hug ME. Who am I that I deserve a hug?<\/p>\n
Despite my initial hesitancy, deep down I was thrilled. I actually couldn’t wait to get hugged! So I put my groceries down, walked over to that sweet little boy, knelt down, and received God’s wonderful blessing.<\/p>\n
It was so simple, and yet such a pure act of love. A hug from a little child — no pretense, no hidden motives. Just a kid who saw a worried adult struggling and figured a hug would make it all better.<\/p>\n
And he was right. I could barely fight back the tears of joy as I contemplated that brief gesture of acceptance. I quickly realized God had just answered my prayer in the most tangible and personal way.<\/p>\n
If you need His touch, as I did, ask the Lord to show Himself to you.<\/p>\n
And then, wait expectantly for His outstretched arms to bring you comfort, safety and provision.<\/p>\n
I got this forward last week and just now opened it …<\/strong><\/p>\n After having an especially emotional day – I need a hug – thanks God!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This was a forward sent by my dear Aunt L – I know that God loves me from an intellectual standpoint. I knew that He would think well of me when I did right and would somehow tolerate me when I did wrong. But somehow I couldn’t understand the unconditional love that the Bible says […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3485"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}