Editor's note: Enjoy today's devotion from The Ladder of Love by Stasi Eldredge.
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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. 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.
As an adult, I now know more fully the story of my mother’s life, and I am filled with compassion for her. I bless her. I forgive her. I love her. But even in the light of love and mercy, I have needed to be honest about her failures. And for me, as a child of the Living God, I am so profoundly grateful that I am securely attached. I am attached to my Father—my Father who not only fathers me so well but mothers me too.
Friends, not only can we all find and enjoy attachment and belonging, we merely need to receive it. Jim Wilder in Renovated says that salvation is the ultimate attachment.7 All our deepest questions are answered the way they need to be in Jesus Christ.
A prayer of contentment from Psalm 131:
My heart is not proud, Lord,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have calmed and quieted myself,
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.
Israel, put your hope in the Lord
both now and for evermore. — vv. 1–3
Weaned means “satisfied.” It means to have had enough. It means having had hunger assuaged not just temporarily but abundantly. They are full! A weaned child is at rest, knowing that more is always available. We can have that experience. We are meant to know that.
In Ephesians 1:3, Paul writes,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. — ESV
Every spiritual blessing, not some spiritual blessings. It doesn’t say He’s blessed us with a couple of things that will help us as we sojourn Home. It says He’s blessed us with every single one. What are they?
Paul goes on to outline “every spiritual blessing.” First, we have God’s gift of being chosen by Him to be His particular treasure. We have “adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ” (v. 5). Then Paul speaks of the “glorious grace” that God has “poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that He purchased our freedom with the blood of His Son and forgave our sins. He has showered His kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding” (vv. 6–8 NLT).
Our heavenly Father is rich in grace, kindness, forgiveness, freedom, wisdom and understanding, and every fruit of the Spirit, and He makes us rich in the same, in Jesus. For this reason Paul could say,
And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus. — Philippians 4:19
All you need.
Remember that 1 John 3:1 encourages us to “see what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” His love isn’t stingy. He doesn’t parcel it out depending upon His mood or current state.
His love is abundant. His love is lavish. Always. And it always has been.
1. Robert Winston and Rebecca Chicot, “The Importance of Early Bonding on the Long-Term Mental Health and Resilience of Children,” London Journal of Primary Care 8, no. 1 (2016): 12–14, https://doi.org/10.1080/17571472.2015.1133012.
2. Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection, 10th anniversary ed. (Random House, 2020), 37.
3. Cherie Snyder, Captivating Retreat, Wild at Heart, April 2024, used with permission.
4. Jeremy Holmes, John Bowlby & Attachment Theory (Routledge, 1993), 61.
5. Winston and Chicot, “The Importance of Early Bonding.”
6. Winston and Chicot, “The Importance of Early Bonding.”
7. Jim Wilder, Renovated: God, Dallas Willard, and the Church That Transforms (Nav Press, 2020).
Excerpted with permission from The Ladder of Love by Stasi Eldredge, copyright Stasi Eldredge.
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Your Turn
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