Love can sometimes seem such an empty word. 
A gesture, an emoji. 
A follow, a like. 
A swipe up or down, left or right. 
Yet each of us growing up today needs to know love more than anything. 
We long to experience it, to know we are safe, accepted, valued, forgiven, free… 
And without it, even as children, we know pain, loneliness, anxiety, fear, trauma and regret. 

A God who we can’t see so easily these days, whose story we don’t all know so much anymore, might be harder to believe in… But a Church that could show us His love – that really would be something. 

It would have to be the kind of love that doesn’t come with conditions, pre-dispositions, prejudices and baggage about who we are. 

The kind of love that says, “You are welcome!” first, before anything else. The kind of love that says, “You can belong here.” The kind of love that says, “You matter.”
The kind of love that says, “Whatever you’re thinking of, whatever you’re dreaming of, you’re accepted for who you are, not for who we’d prefer you to be.” 
 

Produced by National Younger Leaders working with the Church of England Foundation for Educational Leadership (CEFEL)

Pause and think or pray for:
•    someone young or old that you love.
•    someone that is anxious, lonely or fearful today that you are aware of.
•    your school, church or community – to pray that it may be one of welcome and love. 

Amen