STAY IN 'TOUCH'

STAY IN ‘TOUCH’

 Being touched – physically, emotionally, spiritually – is mission critical to our wholeness and health.  Rene Spitz recorded the tragic results of 97 babies and toddlers living life ‘untouched’ within an understaffed South American orphanage.  Due to a serious lack of funding and staffing, these children were deprived of emotional and physical contact with others.  They ranged in age from 3 months to 3 years old.  Although nurses changed their diapers, bathed and fed them, there was little time to hold, cuddle, and talk to them as a mother would.  

 After three months, many showed signs of abnormality.  Besides a loss of appetite and inability to sleep soundly, many children developed a vacant expression in their eyes.  After five months, serious emotional and physical deterioration had set in.  They lay whimpering, with troubled and twisted faces.  When a doctor or nurse would pick them up, some would actually scream in terror.  Sadly, twenty-seven of these children died the first year – not from lack of food or healthcare, but from a lack of human touch and emotional nurture.  Seven more died the second year.  Only twenty-one of the 97 survived, and most of them experienced serious psychological damage. 

 What is reflected in these children is actually applicable to later ages and stages as well.  ALL of us require the sustaining and healing properties of the human touch, which translates to our fundamental need for affection and love.  My friend, reach and touch someone (today), and in doing so, you will also be touched.

 Sisters and brothers, be continually blessed, and please (above all else) MAKE SURE YOU ARE READY TO MEET OUR SOON COMING KING. Maranatha!