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You are Loved  

It was a desperate search.  A Hail Mary.  I was looking for a misplaced check.  A big one. Previous attempts had turned up nothing. 

So there I was, pulling out the large drawer under our bed.  The one where I keep my cards.  All of them.  That’s when I knew this was going to take some time.

There were cards from my wife, Diana: birthday cards and Christmas cards and Valentine’s cards and cards for no other occasion than her simple desire to express her love. By far, these took up the most space.  It was fun to read through many of them (though the ticking grandfather clock several feet away reminded me I hadn’t time to look at them all).

There were cards from our kids.  Some with little squiggly letters when they could barely write their names.  Notes and letters and jokes and drawings.

There were cards from my parents, many of them homemade or accompanied by kind notes and letters.  And I was touched to see cards from my mother and father-in-law, both of whom are now in heaven. 

An emerging category of cards was also there: those from our little grandchildren.  These were really hard to resist reading. To me, owning these is better than owning stock certificates.

With the drawer nearly empty and the elusive check still eluding me, I decided it wasn’t all a waste. After all, I ended up sorting the cards and stuffing them into cardboard folders (more organization than I’ve shown in thirty-plus years).

Before my hike down memory lane concluded, there were two unexpected moments. The first happened when, having concluded the check was simply not in that drawer, I finally found it wedged at the oddest angle in the very back, almost defying gravity (time out for a prayer of thanks).

The second moment came when staring at the piles of cards cascading all around. It was this humbling sense that, “I guess I really am loved.”  A wife who sends me love cards…kids who say kind things…grandkids and parents who express their affection. The cumulative effect was almost overpowering.

I don't know how long it’s been since someone told you were loved.  Maybe it’s been way too long.  Maybe the one you love the most can no longer even send you a card because they aren't around, or their mind has gone.  Then let me say it for them.  You are loved! They would want you to read that—hear that.

And as much as they want you to know that, God wants you to know it even more. In Jeremiah 31:3 God says to you, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.”

How can you really know that?  John 3:16 tells us, “God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”

You are loved.

Really.

Loved.

 

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Jon GaugerJon Gauger

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