Today's inspiration comes from:
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Today's inspiration comes from:
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But I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother. — Psalm 131:2
Are you wondering why I am including a separate chapter on the mothering we receive from our Father God? It’s because it is vital to receive it, and our glorious and good God reveals Himself to us in His Word not only as our Father who fathers us with beautiful intention but also as the One who mothers us with mercy.
For this is what the Lord says:
“I will extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding
stream… As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.” — Isaiah 66:12–13
In Celtic Christianity it is said that there is a mother’s heart at the heart of God. At the heart of a mother’s heart is the willingness to sacrifice for her child. To love. To embody mercy. Mercy is compassionate treatment, a disposition to be kind and forgiving. It is the bent of a good mother’s heart. It is a revelation of the very heart of God’s being.
To mother means to nourish, to guide, to instruct, to protect, to comfort, to encourage, to intervene, to offer mercy, and to bring forth life in all kinds of ways—physically, emotionally, creatively, and spiritually. We all need fathering and we all need mothering. In that, we also need the security of belonging. And belong we do.
So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. — Romans 12:5 NKJV
“Members of one another.” I love that. Believers, the ecclesia—the members of the true Church—belong to each other.
The first core human need that we all possess is to belong and to enjoy secure attachment.1 When we are securely attached, we know we will be safe. We are confident that we will have our needs met and we will be cared for. Human beings need to belong to others as much as they need water. As much as they need food.
Brené Brown writes, “Belonging is the innate human desire to be part of something larger than us. Because this yearning is so primal, we often try to acquire it by fitting in and by seeking approval, which are not only hollow substitutes for belonging, but often barriers to it.”2
Cherie Snyder agrees: “Fitting in has to do with editing ourselves to become like others in order to secure belonging. However, true belonging is the experience of getting to be fully ourselves and having a place in the family or the group all our own as our true selves.”3
Have you had to do much fitting in, lopping off parts of yourself or keeping them hidden to ensure that you will? You have. Of course you have. I certainly have. It is an understandable effort flowing from our personal histories that held pain married to the intense need to belong.
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Members of the true Church belong to each other.
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Members of the true Church belong to each other.
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As we grew up, we were paying attention to what would be acceptable. We are still paying attention, and there is a good reason for it.
The need to belong is as high as the need to secure every other necessity that is needed not only to flourish but to survive. Researchers have discovered that satisfying belongingness requires two aspects of relationships to be met. The first is that people need to have positive and pleasant, not negative, interactions with others. The second aspect specifies that these interactions cannot be random, but rather should take place as part of stable, lasting relationships.
In other words, to have secure belonging, we need love and consistency. We need to have our core questions answered in the way we are meant to—and not just once but over and over again. We need to know that we are loved, we are believed in, we are delighted in, and our needs matter. We need to rest in the safe position of knowing that we are a priority to someone and we have value simply because we exist. We need the assurance that we will not be abandoned and do not have to live in fear. We need to be at rest, settled in the fact that we belong.
John Bowlby was probably the first psychologist to develop the idea that belongingness is a special need and was one of the first to perform experimental tests on the idea. Bowlby is best known for his attachment theory, which says that people’s early relationships with their caregivers, primarily between children and their mothers, set the foundation for how they will respond to others in close, intimate relationships for the rest of their lives.4
As infants we look to our parents to find love and consistency—to find secure belonging in their mirroring gaze. The security of our attachment with our caregivers—primarily our mothers—helps shape the confidence with which we’ll move in the world all our days. Research has shown that babies with very affectionate and attentive mothers grow up to be happier, more resilient, and less anxious adults.5 Higher self-esteem, improved academic performance, better parent- child communication, fewer psychological and behavior problems, and even healthier, longer lives have been linked to this type of affection. This happens because their brains actually change as a result of the affection. The science on that is amazing.
And of course, we know that the opposite is true. The damage done to children with unattached, uninvolved, unloving, or abusive parents is vast and affects every area of their lives. In fact, children left abandoned in their cribs and given only nourishment and the occasional clean diaper without affection or consistent healthy touch will physically die.6
We need to belong. We need to have attachment, and we get it when we are very young. Or we don’t.
I was raised by an overwhelmed mother and, as I have already mentioned, an absent father. At bedtime, my mother would warn my sisters that when they woke up, she would be gone. They would wake in the morning and with terror run into her bedroom to see if she was still there.
She was. She did leave a few times, but they were for short periods of time and didn’t happen until we were all a little older.
The deepest reality is that my mother loved all her children, but she, because of her own story, was ill-equipped to offer mercy. Her own unhealed wounds bound her, and though she worked extremely hard to keep our house clean and to keep us clean, she was barely hanging on. I did not know the depth of her pain or the sorrow of all she had suffered. I did not understand the isolation and loneliness she felt as she lived the experience of being a single mom. The truth is that my dear mother could not offer to any of us a sense of secure attachment.
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People from whom attachment was withheld will suffer all their lives without the intervention of Jesus. But with God, people who had very little attachment as children can grow up to become persons that offer and enjoy secure attachment—if they (1) will acknowledge the failure of their caregivers, usually their moms, and (2) will forgive them.
Because of Christ who lives within us, we can do both.
Continue reading on our blog.
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Excerpted with permission from The Ladder of Love by Stasi Eldredge, copyright Stasi Eldredge.
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Did you know that God mothers you? Belonging is vital to our health and, as a believer, you belong to God. All our deepest questions are answered the way they need to be in Jesus Christ. ~ Devotionals Daily
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A path of healing, transformation, and the breathtaking joy of truly knowing and being loved by God
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The Ladder of Love: A Pathway to Emotional Healing and Spiritual Intimacy with Jesus
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Many women long for a deeper, more experiential relationship with Jesus. They go to church, read their Bible, and pray yet still feel like they know God more in their heads than in their hearts. Shouldn't there be more?
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