Did you have a stuffed animal or a "lovie" growing up?

What was your relationship to the lovie?

What do stuffed animals do for kids?

What can stuffed animals teach us about Jesus?

Comfort –

a physical reminder of the abstract comfort we need as kids

a sense of power and agency with something that is smaller than them

Representation of the abstract, sometimes hard to access, comfort Jesus brings

2 Corinthians 1:3-5

Sensory input, but also knowledge we can seek out what we need

Comfort for fears

Companionship -

Knowing we aren't alone, something to hold but also a special friend

Physical thing, but also powerful

Representative of the compassion of Jesus

Feeding of the 5000 (Matthew 14)

Representative of the gentleness of Jesus

Palm Sunday, riding in on a donkey (Matthew 21)

Let the little children come to me (Matthew 19)