Daniel was born into a Romanian orphanage. For seven years, he only left his crib to go to the bathroom. When he turned eight, a family from another country adopted him. They knew about attachment disorders—that Daniel could have difficulty attaching to them as his parents. Slowly, Daniel started to trust them. Over time, though, he began to rage to the point his parents hired a bodyguard to protect them from Daniel’s outbursts. They decided on a controversial therapy: For the next five years they were never away from Daniel even if he had a meltdown. On his thirteenth birthday Daniel broke down and, for the first time, told his parents he loved them very much. His mother summarized the experience: “Creating love is not for the soft and sentimental. Love is a battlefield.”

We’re all born knowing that something or someone is missing. Like Daniel, we have an attachment disorder. But God “so loved the world” so much that he took drastic action—“he gave his one and only Son” (John 3:16), meeting us on earth’s battlefield in what we call the Incarnation. “Light has come into the world” (v. 19).

God took drastic measures to demonstrate His great love for the world. For you. His strong, determined Father-heart beats to hear from us the words Daniel’s parents finally heard: “I love you very much.”