Securing Strugglers in Love
Author: Andrew Comiskey
June 05, 2023
‘Secure attachment means the
child feels confident that others will be there to protect, comfort and support
him…insecure attachment means the child is unable to develop confidence that
others will be reliably responsive to his needs for comfort, protection, or
support.’ Andrew J. Sodergren, Sexual Identity (ed. Finley)
She was hungry-eyed,
watchful of others’ attentiveness as she lifted weights. A lovely young woman, she
also looked tough and seductive, possibly inclined to other women. I had seen
her a couple times and wondered if she knew the Heavenly Father’s delight in her.
Not just any delight, but His pride in her discipline and cobalt eyes and
chestnut hair tucked in a bun.
The Spirit of prophecy rested
on me, I waited until she had finished her set, and I told her what delighted
me about her. ‘Delight? Me? That’s cool…’ We spoke a little bout how God knows
us deeper than we know ourselves and always leads with delight in the unique
way He designed each of us.
As I’ve got to know Tamara
a little, I recognize her as one of many whose early lives were marked by
insecure attachment—a lack of trust in the unstable persons around her. In the
anxious void, normal emotional needs for advocacy can easily become sexualized
and submitted to bad sources. That can
set one up for the vulnerability a predator sees in a child or teen, for
pornography, and for eroticizing early friendships.
I learned that Tamara had
just left a girlfriend and was ‘working on herself.’ I urged her to invite God
into the process. ‘Our hearts can’t rest without His confirmation. He gives it
freely if you ask for it…Could we agree with Jesus in prayer right now?’
It helps to see things as
they are—the attachment wound beneath a sexual ‘symptom’ but more than that,
the amazing son or daughter Father always summons from the shadows. We
Christians can catch that Spirit in waves of prophecy ever emanating from His
heart; that’s why St. Paul urges us to ‘follow the way of love and eagerly
desire…the gift of prophecy’ (1 Cor. 14:1).
As conduits of delight in
who that man or woman is, we highlight the true self--far more substantial than
the shifting ones on the ‘rainbow’ spectrum. We help others discover the Rock
from which they were hewn and can grow whole.
‘Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; the walls you are rebuilding are ever before Me.’ (Is. 49:15, 16)
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