Love and be loved...

Love and be loved....

My husband loved holding babies....when there was a gathering of people, and there were babies, he would take one and hold it...and, he held our babies a lot...consequently our sons have done the same...and my dad did it as well...some of my favorite pictures are of these men holding babies ....

And now, I see my grandsons doing the same...what a blessing...(happy Father's Day...)

Reading a book by Jay Payleitner, "What if God wrote your Bucket list", there is a chapter called "Love and be Loved".  He speaks of the need to be held, the need to be loved and the need to love....if this does not happen, there is failure to thrive...

When we were foster parents, we usually had babies, all needing that holding as they came from a variety of neglect situations...as well as our youngest son came from a foster care home which had several babies and each was not held enough...he still is working through detachment disorder and probably will his whole life...

All this to say, we are so loved by a Father with an infinite capacity to love...but we also need to love and need that contact with loved ones...those connections...we need to listen to His heart like tiny infants do as they are held close after birth...thank YOU for your love...

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love.
Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
1 John 4:7-11,16