God and Hugs

Do you believe all the crap about God, the church and his people?

Two Sundays ago, a woman claimed that God told her to hug me. About an hour before she hugged me, I was intently listening to the speaker at Community of Faith something Church. (Yeah, I do not know the name of the church.) As usual, I was sitting cross legged on a chair while eating my breakfast from my lunchbox. I glanced around me once or twice just to check of there were people I knew in the crowd. Each time I glanced around, there was this woman who I would catch staring at me. I would have tried to stare her down if only my neck wouldn't ache afterwards. At first, I thought that it was a coincidence. But when I glanced around a second and a third time, the woman was staring at me.


Was it because of my red hair? Or my piercings? Or the way I sat down? Or because I dress like trash? Or maybe because I eat breakfast in church every Sunday? I had all these made up explanations for why she was staring at me. As soon as the service ended, she approached my dad. Oh, so she knew my dad! I must have looked so rude by staring at her the whole time she was talking to my dad. And then, my dad introduced me to the woman. 'Oh, So and So. This is my daughter, Anna,' my dad said. The woman said something like, 'Oh. Really? I was staring at her the whole time. I have to tell her something.'


My dad left and I was like what the f. I do know that God speaks to people. But God had something for me and he just had to tell it to this girl? Come on. The woman inched closer to me and said, 'God told me to hug you.' Are you kidding me? Are you freaking kidding me? My own family knows that I am not into hugging or putting my body near another person's body. I hate anything that has to do with physical touch or contact or whatever you want to call it. But no, this wasn't gonna be a hug from a person. This was a hug from God. 


I leaned in and let the woman hug me. Who the freak am I kidding, I thought. Hug from God? What kind of crap is that? But I figured that if I went along with it, the hug would be over in a few seconds. Besides, if I said no to the hug, I'd get a long sermon from my parents afterwards. I must have looked so confused and so puzzled concerning the hug. And yet, a few seconds before the hug was over, I found myself tearing up.

For me, the hug represented three things in my life.

• God - It was something I had to do in order to come to terms with my faith in God. I am positive that God told the woman to hug me and test me to see if I would allow her near me. God wanted to know if I was the person I claimed to be. I'm sure God was like, 'This Anna says that she believes in me, but she hates people who touch her. Let's see if she how much she really loves me.' By letting this unknown woman hug me, I was telling God that I did in fact believe in him even though he may be so strange at times.
• The Church - Ever since I was a kid, I've hated church. Doesn't matter what church it was, I just really didn't like church. Up to now, it's a struggle. Just moved to a new church and even though the people there are really awesome, I just can't trust them right away. It's hard. And yet there I was, in the middle of the sanctuary, receiving a hug from a woman. They saw me tear up. They saw me open up myself to a stranger. Yeah, I am opening up myself to being a part of a church.

• His People - Just like church, I had issues with religious people. I doubt many of them. I have been rude to a number of pastors in the past. I have made sure never to trust them or even commend them for their preachings. I have questioned everything those said people of God do and are still doing. I told myself that by getting to know people in church, I am making myself vulnerable. I made myself so vulnerable by accepting the hug. And then after hugging that woman, I asked someone to disciple me. It's time to start trusting the people who make church bearable. 

'And yeah, yeah, God is great. And yeah, yeah, God is good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. '