My daughter Lindsey is a cuddlebug. In fact, she always has been. She has always enjoyed close physical contact.
Sometimes, she wants to play. She loves being tossed, flipped, or spun. She loves climbing all over me if I lie down. She loves being tickled or “eaten”, which is when I make growling noises and pretend like I am eating her shoulders, her ears, or her cheeks.
Other times, Lindsey simply enjoys being close. Yesterday, I was sitting on the couch talking to one of the other children, when I realized that Lindsey was sitting right next to me. She had climbed up onto the couch and snuggled against me so easily and quietly that I hadn’t even noticed when she came. We sat like that for awhile, with Kenny later joining us, and it was one of the best parts of my day.
When Lindsey is sick, she seems to feel a special need to cuddle. She wants to be held close as much as possible. The most recent time she was sick, she wanted to lie on me and be cuddled.
Did she want fun and games?
No.
Did she want me to take her somewhere?
No.
Did she want horseplay and tickles?
Definitely not.
She simply wanted to be close to me when she was feeling at her worst.
When a child is sick, her mother’s presence and touch are the most healing therapies in the world. They’re even better than chicken soup. They’re better than 7-Up and crackers. I think they even do more good sometimes than medication (though there are certainly times where medication is necessary).
God designed it that way. He designed the relationship between mother and child in such a way that when the child feels sick, she wants her mommy. And He designed cuddling during times of illness not only to help the child heal, but to strengthen the bond between mother and child.
Do you know something? God designed the relationship between Him and His children—us—to work the same way.
When we feel at our worst, He is the One Who can (and will!) bring us the most comfort. Just as you welcome an ill child into your warm, comforting embrace, so does our Heavenly Father welcome His hurting child into His arms.
Had Lindsey refused my comfort when she was sick, she likely would have gotten better anyway. The difference is that if we refuse our Heavenly Father’s comfort, we may not get entirely better. We may wind up with unresolved pain that lingers long after the onset of the original hurt—sometimes years.
So why don’t we seek His comfort?
It could be that we’re afraid to face the pain, and we don’t realize that the pain will hurt worse apart from the Father.
It could be that we blame our Father for the fact that we hurt in the first place, and we let our anger keep us far from His comfort, when what we don’t realize is that with Him or without Him, the hurt would have happened, and what makes the most sense is for us to ask Him to comfort us through it.
Or, it could be that we anticipate a negative reaction when we come to him. Sometimes, we get this idea that we as Christians aren’t really supposed to hurt. We’re supposed to be able to bear everything with a smile on our face. If we can’t, we reason, it must mean we don’t have enough faith. So we don’t come to God for comfort because we can’t come “correctly”—that is, having handled the problem on our own first, in order to show Him…what?
Friend, if this is what you’re afraid of, then you’re misunderstanding God’s very nature.
When Lindsey was sick and came to me for comfort, I didn’t lecture her on how she should act when she is sick. I didn’t tell her that she was being a wimp and send her off to get better by herself. I didn’t even give her any reassurances on how she would get better eventually.
I simply held her and loved her.
If we can be so loving toward our children, and God is so vastly more loving than we are, why would we ever think we would receive anything less than a perfectly loving welcome? If we know how to comfort our children when they are sick, why would we think God wouldn’t comfort us in the way we need?
Oh, friend, how do you need comfort from God today?
I don’t know what is happening in your life. I don’t know the ways you might be hurting.
But I do know that God knows, and that He cares more about you than you could ever imagine.
Let Him comfort you. Climb up into His lap, and lay your head on His chest. Feel His everlasting arms around you as He simply loves you through your hurt with the nearness of His presence.
Matthew 7:11—If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
Luke 13:34—How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!