Though I didn’t realize it until I was experiencing it, the embrace of a baby was what I needed most.

Last Sunday, I headed off to church, feeling like I often do on a Sunday morning: thankful for a chance to worship corporately…but also like I needed something I couldn’t specifically name.

Perhaps it was more rest, when the tiredness of the whole week often rises up to meet me on the weekends. Perhaps it was a personal reminder that I can somehow be known and loved simply as I am, a need that sometimes gets lost when I feel lost while attending an ever-growing congregation.

I attended a session with my small group, which was fine. They are dear to my heart, and we’re all growing together. Then we sang some songs and listened to a creatively-formatted sermon. That was also fine.

But the need, the longing was still there.

Stepping out into the foyer afterward, I noticed the family walking toward me and recognized baby Olivia and her mom and brother. (She is one of the little ones I sometimes care for during monthly volunteering in the nursery. But, while she is a good girl, she’s never been much of a cuddler or talker.)

Olivia turned in her mom’s loose embrace and made eye contact with me. Then, she immediately spread her arms and reached out to me. I was so surprised that I gasped. When her mom paused and said it was fine for me to take her, she came to me eagerly.

And she didn’t just passively wait to let me give her a flash of a hug. She draped herself against me, laid her head on my shoulder, and soaked up my embrace for at least a full minute. I leaned into her and turned my face to kiss her silky brown hair. And I murmured, “Oh, baby, thank you. I cannot tell you how much your love blesses me today.”

And in that moment, the need I didn’t know how to name, the need I didn’t know ran so deep, was met in a way.

And I was struck by how the love a baby gives is so guileless and heart-melting, there is nothing else quite like it on the face of the earth. Even if it comes from a child that is not our own, when a baby gives acceptance and trust from his or her heart, that little one gives a pure gift: love with no ulterior motives.

Some people say that God came as a baby so He could fly under the local king’s radar. Others say He came that way so we could find Him more relatable somehow.

Those things may be true. But I think Olivia’s gift taught me something more fundamental and precious. He came as a baby to show us, in human terms, the very essence of love, starting with the sweet, innocent trusting of infancy and continuing on until His life was laid down for us.

The purest love and the greatest love. Both in His embrace. Just what we each need the most.