Journey of the Heart / Jennifer Burger

Like God, take time to offer embraces of unconditional love

With two adult children living out of state, we make frequent trips to the Indianapolis International Airport to pick them up when they come home.

Sometimes we opt for the easier in-and-out method of waiting in the remote cell phone parking lot for the call that they’ve landed and pick them up outside the terminal. For their most recent visit, however, I decided that rather than stay in the remote cell phone lot, I would park in the garage and wait for their arrival inside the terminal.

There were a handful of people waiting for their loved ones, and I enjoyed watching their happy reunions as I awaited my own.

One interaction caught my attention: a man walked into the main area of the terminal and was enthusiastically greeted by a woman. Their embrace lasted a long time as they rocked back and forth, and I could hear their cries of laughter and joy. It was a beautiful embrace, and I was deeply moved by it. They passed me as they were leaving, arm and arm, and their faces still radiated the joy of the embrace they had just shared.

Embraces such as this are memorable. I love a good hug and love to give them as I greet others, but an embrace is something more than a greeting. An embrace is not simply arms wrapped around another, but a holding of one another’s heart.

It is an intimate exchange that remains with us long after arms are released. An embrace has the power to transform, to give new or renewed life, to restore and rebuild what has been lost or has been missing.

It is the embrace of joy between friends reuniting after a long time away or of support between two people consoling each other during a loss, moments when words cannot express what the heart is feeling—a deep expression of a love shared.

Indeed, a true embrace reveals love. In this, we are reminded and assured that we are loved and held by God and carry that with us.

One of the most beautiful embraces we know from Scripture is from the Gospel of Luke in the Parable of the Lost Son—the father “ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him” (Lk 15:20). This was more than a homecoming but a reunion of two hearts—a love exchanged between the father and son.

The words they shared came after the embrace: the son’s admission and the father’s response to dress him in fine clothing and to declare a feast for him. But the embrace itself was an act of the heart—pure love!

The words of the older son who witnessed this embrace tell a different story, but I wonder if what he really wanted was not the material gifts and party, but the “embrace”? The love of his father was never far from him, but perhaps he never revealed his heart to the father to make this exchange complete?

The embrace of God’s love is for us all. God does not hold back, but so often we do.

There are places in our hearts that need this embrace, as well is in our families and in the world today. The embrace may find us as we wait in remote places, but most often we have to “go inside” first to awaken the heart to reveal what needs embracing.

Where hearts are hardened, let there be the embrace of reconciliation; where wounded, the embrace of healing; where curious, the embrace of faith and understanding; and where there is joy, let us share this embrace with each other!
 

(Jennifer Burger is program manager at Our Lady of Fatima Retreat House in Indianapolis and a member of St. Simon the Apostle Parish in Indianapolis. She is also a spiritual director.) †