This may sound really weird and I may be the only one in the world who experiences this but I would like you to try an experiment. Today, when you take a hot shower, stand in front of the shower for a moment and take a deep breath.  Then, just stand there and see how long the feeling last. Enjoy the moment. Almost every time I do this, I start to get those wonderful chill bumps all over my body.

I have started to call these moments “holy hugs”. Philip Yancey wrote a book several years ago called Rumors of Another World in which he tries to enliven the skeptics faith by getting them to pay attention to the strangely beautiful that surrounds them. The idea being that some things are just so profoundly wonderful that they cannot be easily dismissed as random accidents. We all have had those moments where a look from your child, a scene from nature, or a particular word spoken simply overtakes us with joy and comfort. Or more simply, where a taste of ice cream or a dip in a swimming pool is just so refreshing we say silly things like, “This is the life.”

I think God has a hand in every one of these profoundly wonderful moments and he loves to provide them for us. I think he uses these moments to get us to question just who is responsible for the beauty that surrounds us, who created the sweet things in life, and why can life be so wonderful? I have no idea what it is about the shower and my positioning and the temperature of the room that makes my body break out in relaxing goose bumps. From a physiological standpoint I don’t really care. All I know is that I have started to savor these moments as a hug from someplace and someone else that is beyond my limited understanding and experience.