What do you need? What do I need? What is the greatest need we all have as humans?
You need love. I need love. We all need to be loved. It is our greatest need.

People can meet that need. Some will love us. The fortunate ones are loved from the moment of their birth. Their family is crazy about them. Some are not so fortunate.

Back in the 1980s my two year old son was in the hospital for two weeks with a broken femur. It was a nasty break. He was in the pediatric unit with his legs strapped up in traction. In the room next to us there was an infant, a baby boy about two months old. This baby was born with multiple birth defects. His hands and feet were bound in wrappings and it was mentioned to me that he had hydrocephalus as well. The room where he lay in a crib was always dark. Never once did I see a visitor or family member in his room and I was at the hospital every day. The on-duty nurse would care for him, but no one held him for more than a few minutes at a time. Rarely was he taken out of the room. The little guy seemed abandoned, unwanted, and he seemed to receive only the basics of care. It made me wonder the particulars. It bothered me. I felt it in my maternal heart, that he was being withheld from bonding with an adult, as if his little life didn’t matter. We need love to survive. He needed love. That was the point. The neglect of one so young hurt me to watch.

Some have known so little love.

There is one who meets our love-hunger need. It is Jesus. He meets our need to be loved regardless of what the world around us should imply about our worth and value. Jesus walks with us. He talks with us. He listens to our woes and celebrates our joys. Jesus caries our burdens and lifts our cares, even when we are too weary to ask him to do that for us.

Jesus loves you. He always will love you. You can count on his love. It never fails. Never, ever fails. You can take that to the bank!