I Love My Shepherd

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)