Some years ago, my adult daughter sent me flowers; it felt like a great big hug. Her caring buoyed me at a time when I really needed some extra love. It got me thinking about how a compassionate heart intuits just what’s needed: a hug, a helpful word, an encouraging message sent at the right time, or simply the willingness to be present for another person. Who hasn’t felt a lift from doubt or discouragement when someone has expressed practical caring?

So, why does that caring stir the heart? The flowers felt like a hug because they were reflective of more—they were evidence of the source of good, which is intelligent, divine Love, a name for God from the Bible (see I John 4:8). This Love is universal, reigning over all creation. Love operates as law to bless all humanity. 

As I thought about the relationship between the affection that knew just when to send the flowers and the divine Love that causes its own children to naturally love each other, I remembered another time when someone I was with intuitively sensed my need. I was grappling with severe pain when my friend gently wrapped me up in a hug with a soft “No.” I knew instinctively that my friend’s “No” was rebuking the pain as causeless and illegitimate, since it didn’t come from God. The pain immediately disappeared. The hug wasn’t the power that healed it. But that embrace provided tangible reassurance of the presence of God’s unwavering love and the spiritual perfection of my being. Right then, it buoyed my trust that the law of divine Love was operating, supreme over any apparent cause for or sense of pain.