He lost the
love of his life. When his wife Mary died, Dan Peterson went into a
deep depression. For six months, this 82-year-old widower of Augusta,
Georgia, did very little except look out his window at the squirrels in
his yard.
But one day
at the grocery store, his life changed.
He was
nearing the end of the canned food aisle when a four-year-old girl named
Norah Wood, riding in the buggy as her mother, Tara, pushed it, randomly
reached out to this “cranky old man” and said, “Hi old person! It’s my
birthday!”
Mr. Dan
stopped in his tracks, smiled, and said, “Well hello, little lady.”
They continued chatting for a couple of minutes. Then Norah said she
wanted to give Mr. Dan a hug. “So they posed together, and then they
hugged each other like they were long lost friends,” said Tara.
“She zeroed
in on him like a missile,” Tara explains. “And she didn’t want anything
from him. She just wanted to make him feel loved and give him a hug.”
That exchange
has led to a wonderful friendship. Tara takes her daughter Norah to
see Mr. Dan about once a week. Their friendship has blossomed bringing
great joy to both of them.
Steve Hartman
interviewed Mr. Dan. They spoke of the time of Mr. Dan’s intense grief.
“What were
you living for?” asked Hartman.
“I was trying
to figure that out, frankly” replied Mr. Dan.
“You had no
purpose?”
“No.”
“Were you
just waiting to die?”
“Yeah.”
“And then one
day you go to the grocery store.”
At that
moment in the interview, Mr. Dan’s face lit up with a big grin. His
body shook as he chuckled with glee, because now the topic of
conversation became his new little four-year-old friend, Norah.
“She opened
me to a love that I didn’t know existed. “
“Dan, let me
ask you,” Hartman inquired. “When you’re wife died, you felt like you
didn’t have a purpose anymore. Do you feel like you have a purpose
now?”
Mr. Dan
replied instantly, “Of course! Nora. Watching her grow up. I know
I’ve made room in my heart for a lot more.”
The way that
Norah reached out to this man who needed love so desperately pictures
the love that God has for you and for me. God is love (1 John 4:8), and
He loves us, even if we don’t deserve it. We really don’t, because we
have sinned and rebelled against Him (Romans 3:23). But He loves us
anyway.
And how much
does God love us? “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that
while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). He loves
us so much that He gave His one and only Son to die on the cross for our
sins so that we might have forgiveness and live with Him eternally
(Romans 6:23; Ephesians 1:7).
