Steve Burns wasn’t conventionally handsome when he first auditioned to become the host of the Nickelodeon children’s show Blue’s Clues, but his weird, manic energy set him apart. In particular, after Burns would ask a question, he would get very close to the camera and incline his ear to show he was listening. Burns said in a recent interview, “I'd love to say that I was just a forward-thinking and insightful, brilliant actor, but it had nothing to do with anything like that. It was just desperation.”

What really sealed the deal, though, is how the children responded to him – one child in particular. MTV Networks, Nickelodeon’s parent company at the time, set up a focus group with toddlers, the intended audience demographic. Employee Lisa Headley brought in her two-year-old daughter. "She kind of like went a little feral, you know, dancing and carrying on, jumping up and down," Headley said. Burns ended up being hired as the host, and clips of Headley’s daughter excitedly responding to Burns were used in promotional advertisements for the show.

But Steve Burns didn’t get to meet that little girl until many, many years later. She’s now a TikTok influencer that goes by the name Astraea Regina, and they happened to be in the same comic convention in Indiana. When a friend told her that Burns was there, she dropped everything to go meet him.

"I went over to him and then I explained to him the story and his face looked so shocked," Regina said.

"I kind of thought she was just saying, 'I used to watch you on TV,'" Burns said. "I was like, 'Oh, cool, thank you. You know, that's great.' She's like, 'No, dude, that was me. I was the one who got you. I was the one in that focus group.' And that was just mind-blowing."

The two shared a hug, which was captured on social media and got more than a million views between TikTok and Instagram.

When Regina was asked why that video resonated so much with her followers, she struck an appreciative tone:

I think it gave a lot of people some context that a child's love and a child's adoration, and a child's voice actually does mean something. And I think Steve wanted that type of story to really come through because that's what he wanted someone to know, that he was still listening.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Children need to know there are loving adults willing to listen. By modeling a posture of patient engagement, we model for them the love of God, which is always present and available.