“Before you participate in shame’s campaign, turning away from your own needs, remember, your longings are good, God-given even. . . . Need draws us toward each other. We were meant to be engaged in a dance of giving and receiving. Our need was given to braid us into the loving care of the Trinity.”- Summer Joy Gross
“[Jesus] told her, ‘God call your husband and come back.’ ‘I have no husband,’ she replied.”- John 5:18-19 (NIV)
As Summer Joy Gross continues Chapter 1 of The Emmanuel Promise, she cautions that we often pass over the invitation to become acquainted with what our primal longing to feel safe, seen, soothed, and secure looks like. Rather, we respond via immediate reaction and reaching.
However, Summer counsels, it’s possible to interrupt our lurching toward love, belonging, and worth. Instead, we learn to pay attention to and turn toward that longing as we respond with curiosity and compassion.
Most significantly, Summer notes, you build a secure attachment slowly. Hence, one met need after another must occur until you build trust. Above all, the author underscores, as a child you bore no responsibility to weigh the level of your need and decide if it was worthy of care. Your responsibility only involved crying out.
Furthermore, to develop a safe attachment we need a safe place for our ache to come to the surface. Thus, when the Samaritan woman came to the well, she encountered a divine appointment with Jesus. And when Jesus sent the disciples away to buy food, He created a safe place for her story and her ache to rise to the surface.
In conclusion, Summer applies this biblical account to our situations. She writes:
“Jesus wants us to bring our need into His presence with clarity, not to guard, attempt to fill, or escape it. We don’t have to shrink or manage our need to make it acceptable. The God of the universe has unlimited capacity to hold our need with tenderness.”
Today’s question: How does Jesus engage you in a dance of giving and receiving? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Leave and cleave – the desert”