Attachment Disorder
At my Greensboro church this morning, pastor talked about what it means to take up the cross and follow Him. His two main points were 1)The art of surrendering means attaching (abiding, remaining) ourselves to Jesus and 2)The art of surrender means finding a new identity in Jesus. I was excited when he talked about abiding because that was what the message was about last Sunday at my Charlotte church. I don't believe this is a coincidence, perhaps the Lord is trying to teach me something; I just need to listen.
He closed the message with a beautiful, interesting, true story about a child with something called Attachment Disorder. I had never heard of this, but pastor, being a counselor, explained it very eloquently. In the first 6-12 months of a child's life, it's extra important to intentionally engage with the child as their parent and other loved one. This means making eye contact, smiling, talking to, playing with, etc, all the things that you normally see people doing with children. When pastor was in counseling school he had a friend with a young child that suffered from attachment disorder, because his mom was depressed when he was first born so she wouldn't look at him and his parents were having marital problems; when anyone would try to hug him, make eye contact with him, show affection toward the child, he would reject it. He wouldn't meet your eyes and squirm out of embraces. (As he was telling us this, my heart was breaking.) I'm sure children who grow up with attachment disorder have quite some difficulty engaging in everyday culture. In order to help this child overcome the disorder, his parents would literally have to wrestle with the child to hold him, hold is head and make him look into their (his parents') eyes. First for five seconds, and progressively longer. Eventually, they didn't have to fight for his affection or to show theirs; he learned that he is their child and that's the way things should be. Pastor said he would come visit them and the boy would just sit in his embrace for long stretches of time. Praise God!
The point he was making was we are like that child with Attachment Disorder; we go against what is natural: the Father's love for us, abiding in Him, identifying ourselves as His child. When we're being broken of this, we squirm and cry and maybe even bite, but He just asks for five seconds this time...then 20 seconds, then 60 seconds, until we finally don't fight. It takes us time to learn how to engage with the Father as our Father, but He's determined because He knows what we need and we need His love. When we stop fighting, and learn to enjoy the Love of the Father we become more than willing to simply sit in His lap and listen to His heartbeat and breath, and that's how it should be.
He closed the message with a beautiful, interesting, true story about a child with something called Attachment Disorder. I had never heard of this, but pastor, being a counselor, explained it very eloquently. In the first 6-12 months of a child's life, it's extra important to intentionally engage with the child as their parent and other loved one. This means making eye contact, smiling, talking to, playing with, etc, all the things that you normally see people doing with children. When pastor was in counseling school he had a friend with a young child that suffered from attachment disorder, because his mom was depressed when he was first born so she wouldn't look at him and his parents were having marital problems; when anyone would try to hug him, make eye contact with him, show affection toward the child, he would reject it. He wouldn't meet your eyes and squirm out of embraces. (As he was telling us this, my heart was breaking.) I'm sure children who grow up with attachment disorder have quite some difficulty engaging in everyday culture. In order to help this child overcome the disorder, his parents would literally have to wrestle with the child to hold him, hold is head and make him look into their (his parents') eyes. First for five seconds, and progressively longer. Eventually, they didn't have to fight for his affection or to show theirs; he learned that he is their child and that's the way things should be. Pastor said he would come visit them and the boy would just sit in his embrace for long stretches of time. Praise God!
The point he was making was we are like that child with Attachment Disorder; we go against what is natural: the Father's love for us, abiding in Him, identifying ourselves as His child. When we're being broken of this, we squirm and cry and maybe even bite, but He just asks for five seconds this time...then 20 seconds, then 60 seconds, until we finally don't fight. It takes us time to learn how to engage with the Father as our Father, but He's determined because He knows what we need and we need His love. When we stop fighting, and learn to enjoy the Love of the Father we become more than willing to simply sit in His lap and listen to His heartbeat and breath, and that's how it should be.
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