Around the world, I’ve discovered a universal truth in my work as Director of Orphan Care for Hope’s Promise. And in my role as a parent, family member, and friend. As a human. Trauma wounds. But attachment heals.

Last month I gathered for training with two of our international staff leaders, Steve, Hope’s Promise Kenya Program Director, and Kim Anh, Vietnam Country Coordinator; over twenty of our Vietnamese staff; and about fifteen members of other Vietnamese organizations serving vulnerable children. While we spoke different languages and needed translation to bridge the gap, ate dragon fruit during snack breaks instead of perhaps apples or mango, and “home” meant different parts of the globe, when Dr. Julie Cooper of Trauma Free World defined trauma as “any negative situation that overwhelms a person’s ability to cope,” we all knew exactly what she meant.

And, when Dr. Julie described the process of attachment, we all envisioned babies and parents we know.

I’ve been watching the process of attachment up close lately. My precious granddaughter, Eliara, was born in September 2023. I spend time with her weekly, and one of my greatest joys is the growing evidence that she knows who I am and trusts me. I treasure every smile. However, when her mom and dad are in the room, she lights up!

When Eliara cries, her parents respond to every need, even in the middle of the night when they are exhausted. When she’s happy, they mirror her giggles. They’ve created a dance where everyone bounces, chants “Eliara,” and laughs together. To my son and daughter-in-law, it’s just their “new normal,” the routine tasks of parenthood. But what they aren’t even conscious of most of the time is that they are actually forming the neural pathways of their daughter’s brain. They are laying the groundwork that will enable her to believe she is safe, loved, and her voice matters.

In John chapter 10, Jesus describes the kind of attachment He wants to have with us. And it sounds a lot like what I see in my granddaughter’s relationship with her parents.

Jesus describes Himself as a shepherd. The sheep hear his voice, He says, and they know His voice. Eliara was born knowing her parents’ voices. From the earliest days of her life, she turned her head when she heard her mom or dad speak.

Jesus says He calls his sheep by name and leads them out. “Eliara” means “light of God,” and every time her mom or dad say her name, they are calling her to know God and to shine His light to others. Think back to Mary Magdalene when she rushed to the tomb, early on Easter morning. Perhaps her tears blinded her, but when the risen Savior spoke to her, she mistook Him for a gardener and asked where he’d taken Jesus’ body. Only when He said her name, “Mary,” did she fall to her knees in recognition.                           

Where I live in Colorado, we see a lot more cows than sheep. So, I don’t know much about sheep from experience. But I learned, as I studied this passage, that sheep won’t follow a voice they don’t know. In fact, multiple sheep herders can allow their flocks to mix without needing to mark their own. They simply call the sheep, and the flocks separate, drawn to the voice they recognize.

Jesus also describes himself as the door for the sheep. Last June, I enjoyed the privilege of visiting an ancient sheepfold in Bethlehem. We ducked down a steep staircase of steps carved into the rock. At the bottom, I stood blinking in the semidarkness of a narrow corridor opening into a subterranean cave. We stepped into the middle space where the sheep would settle down for the night as our guide explained that the shepherd would literally place his body across the opening into the cave. Any wild animal hoping to attack the sheep would have to pass through the shepherd first. I know that without a moment of hesitation, any of my family would lay down our lives if it meant Eliara would live.

In verse 14, Jesus states His masterplan, the deepest desire of His heart. “I know my own and My own know me.”  To know and to be known is the all-consuming fire at the heart of the universe. Jesus longs for nothing more than to experience an intimate relationship with each of us. With you.

But there is a massive counterattack against Jesus’s “battle plan of love.” In John 10:10, He describes the opposite of the attachment He longs for with each of us: “The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy.”

I’m convinced that the enemy’s strongest weapon to “steal, kill, and destroy” is trauma. This enemy has no mercy. When we are at our weakest and most vulnerable, he brings his strongest attacks against us.

When I am with Eliara, sometimes I feel overwhelmingly sad.  You see, I find myself thinking about a different time, a different baby. Someone I love dearly who experienced “complex developmental trauma,” defined by Dr Julie as a growing realm of research concerning the impact of trauma and neglect on children under age five. With the permission of this “baby,” now an adult, I share his story. This baby was placed on the day of birth in a “Mother Teresa Home for Abandoned Children” in Nairobi, Kenya. While the nuns most certainly gave all the love they could to him and to the roomful of about forty other little ones around him, there simply wasn’t enough to go around. When this baby cried, many times, no one came. His needs went unmet, his emotions unmirrored, his voice unheard. His conclusion – he was on his own. So, he simply stopped crying.

More than two decades later, even after being adopted at age 15 months old, he needs constant reminders that his voice matters. He is not on his own. He is the child, family member, and friend of many who raise a mighty chorus that he is beloved. Slowly, he’s starting to believe it.

We are meant for attachment, intended to know how very much we are loved. But trauma steals the truth of who we are and to whom we belong.

On a flight to Vietnam, where I attended Dr. Julie’s trauma informed care training, I watched a movie called Arthur, Legend of the Sword. Arthur began his life as the treasured son of a king. But his uncle, jealous of Arthur’s father’s power, orchestrates Arthur’s mother’s death and Arthur’s father sacrifices his own life to save Arthur’s. A sword pierces Arthur’s father and turns him to stone as young Arthur escapes in a boat and ends up in a village down river, taken in by women from a brothel. He grows up into a crime boss, believing he’s the son of a prostitute. Meanwhile, Arthur’s uncle searches for him and tests every young male in the kingdom to find the one who can remove the sword, now embedded in a boulder. Much to everyone’s surprise, Arthur withdraws it! As Arthur’s uncle plans his execution, a magical being rescues Arthur and reveals his true identity. But Arthur doesn’t believe her and wants nothing to do with being king. Only when the magic creature shows him a vision of the terrible future many people will endure if he refuses to lead does he agree to fulfill his destiny. Finally, embracing who he is and who his father is, gives him the strength to control the sword, defeat evil, and reclaim the throne.

Like the baby I described earlier, Arthur’s true identity was stolen from him. Lies were inserted when he was at his most vulnerable, in the trauma of losing both his parents. Only later, when others convinced him of the truth did he rediscover who he really was and find the courage to fulfill his destiny.

We were intended to live deeply attached to the God who created us. We were intended to be who He says we are. But trauma steals the truth about who we are and who we belong to.

Like the magical being who told Arthur the truth, like the adoptive parents of the baby who started his life in an orphanage, Jesus comes along and says to each one of us – listen to My voice. I know you. Let me tell you who you are. Let me tell you to Whom you belong.

So, what does Jesus’ voice sound like and what does he say? In verse 10, Jesus says, “I have come that you may have life and life abundantly.” The Greek word, “perisson,” in the original text means “far beyond one’s needs.” Does this “abundance” mean tangible stuff? No, if you are like me, then you know that the more stuff you have, the more you want. Stuff never truly satisfies. No, Jesus’ abundance has far more to do with what is in our hearts than what is in our hands.

In 2023, I experienced God’s abundance in a way that defies explanation.

It started with a walk in a community that completely lacks the abundance of “stuff.” In fact, in this slum, where half a million people live in six square miles, we slipped in sewage-laced mud; ducked under live, pirated-electricity wires; crowded into one-room, windowless homes; and gazed over a garbage clogged river.

Then we spent the next few days dancing, creating art, and playing musical instruments with the children in Hope’s Promise Kenya’s relative based orphan care program called Kuza (Swahili for “nurture”), implemented through Mathare Worship Centre.

On the last day, to end our time together, we sang “The Blessing.” And I, along with the other members of my team, could no more stay away from this group of seventy children we’d grown to love than water can resist running in trenches. We lifted hands over them, touched their shoulders, gazed into their eyes, sang the ancient words directly to them:

²⁴ “The Lord bless you
    and keep you;
²⁵ the Lord make his face shine on you
    and be gracious to you;
²⁶ the Lord turn his face toward you
    and give you peace.”

Numbers 6:24-26

“May His presence go before you
And behind you, and beside you
All around you, and within you
He is with you, He is with you.”

The Blessing lyrics

Then, as we sang, rat a tat tat began to ring out on the roof, faster and faster.

In Africa, rain means God’s blessing.

We sang louder and louder, “He is for YOU, He is for YOU.” Sheets of water ran like curtains from the edges of the corrugated metal roof until we could no longer hear ourselves singing.

I noticed children crying, even as my own tears overflowed. Like a desert, none of us could absorb that much rain.

No doubt, He had come, powerless to stay away. Unable to remain silent. Proclaiming over them, even as He shouts over each of us, over you: I know who you are. You are mine. And you are my beloved.

……………………………….

Reflection questions:

1. When have you experienced a negative situation that overwhelmed your ability to cope?
2. What lie did you believe in that moment? (Examples: I am on my own, I will never let anyone get this close to me again so I will be safe, etc.)
3. Did you know that it’s not how terrible the situation was that matters most, but how big the lie was that you believed?
4. As you visualize yourself in that terrible situation, where is Jesus? What does He say to you? If you don’t know, ask someone you love and trust who knows Jesus what they think He would say?
5. Talk to Jesus about this reflection.