Count Your Blessings #84 – Hugs

We like hugs in the Chastney family. Jonathan may be 14, but he still gets and gives hugs. Emily seems to run on hugs. Sue is a great hugger. 

Long may it continue.

I’ve recently been introduced to a web site that’s been going for some time called Free Hugs. There’s also a video on YouTube:

As a British male hugging is a cultural nightmare, especially outside the family and that’s a shame. There are a few close friends who I would give a hug too but not that many and I would almost never hug a stranger.

I actually prefer the word “embrace” to the word “hug”, it seems a bit more masculine.

I’ve recently been reading a book about looking after the brain. This book talks about diet and exercise as important factors. It also talks about the brain’s need for us to be tactile and to have face-to-face communications. When I first read about the brain’s need for us to be tactile I was surprised, when I gave it some thought it made a lot of sense.  I often work from home and there are days when I feel this urge to go out and meet someone, anyone. When I get this feeling I normally walk up to the local shop and buy some trivial item, what I’m really buying is a short conversation with a real person. I don’t give them a hug, but I would if the culture would allow.

There’s are all sorts of places where a hug, or embrace, is found in the Bible.

Jesus used an embrace to illustrate His kingdom in Mark 9:

They came to Capernaum. When he was safe at home, he asked them, “What were you discussing on the road?”

The silence was deafening—they had been arguing with one another over who among them was greatest.

He sat down and summoned the Twelve. “So you want first place? Then take the last place. Be the servant of all.”

He put a child in the middle of the room. Then, cradling the little one in his arms, he said, “Whoever embraces one of these children as I do embraces me, and far more than me—God who sent me.”

In Acts 20 this happens:

We met on Sunday to worship and celebrate the Master’s Supper. Paul addressed the congregation. Our plan was to leave first thing in the morning, but Paul talked on, way past midnight. We were meeting in a well-lighted upper room. A young man named Eutychus was sitting in an open window. As Paul went on and on, Eutychus fell sound asleep and toppled out the third-story window. When they picked him up, he was dead.

Paul went down, stretched himself on him, and hugged him hard. “No more crying,” he said. “There’s life in him yet.” Then Paul got up and served the Master’s Supper. And went on telling stories of the faith until dawn! On that note, they left—Paul going one way, the congregation another, leading the boy off alive, and full of life themselves.