Love Language
- Apr 8
- 3 min read
I was recently approached by an academic team requesting my participation in research concerning the psychological treatment and care for child soldiers and raped girls post release/rescue from ISIS. My response was that I would not be a “good participant.”
A worthy source of information, yes, but my contribution would not be welcomed or academically respected. It would be this: Love Wins. Tool boxes of CBT are useful but Love Wins.
I am sure some are sighing right now at my probable oversimplification. We established one of the finest psychological support systems for our survivors, one that followed the rules with every protocol, but one that knew when to work outside the box, and still I say, Love Wins.
I was thinking about the power of love, of acceptance, of belonging this week and how that has changed most of our students’ lives. There have been those so badly wounded that they were unable to allow themselves to feel any emotion again, unable to trust. We did not want to give up on them but in the end there was a choice in front of them.
Choose life so that you and your offspring may live.
Deuteronomy 30:19
In my ponderings of “where we went wrong, why we were unable to break through to those who returned from ISIS as the living dead, why we eventually released them to their choices,” my thoughts turned to an 11-year-old autistic boy called Ayham, always the first to show up every morning, and the last to return to his tent.
A boy who I could not love. A boy for whom I had little compassion.
It was easier for me to love a boy who had been sodomised as a small child and was bunkered up in his tent, than it was for me to love Ayham. I knew that I was at fault but somehow for years I was just plain annoyed.
Ayham has been with us since he was five. He came speaking just one word: Mama. He was not a problem for the first two years, and then overnight he was. Something vile rose up in him, a pent-up anger, along with exposing his private parts. We could not stop him. We could not allow it; apart from the obvious, it was triggering other survivors of ISIS. We spoke with his parents, asking them not to send him. He came anyway. We had hit a brick wall.
The lights went on when one day he called me, Mama. “Mama” was his love language. My language had to change. I needed to learn his love language. We all needed to learn his love language. When we did, his heart began to heal and his spirit began to come alive.
When his heart realised that he had twenty plus Mamas at SOHF, twenty plus both male and female who were willing to learn his language, his anger dissipated, his frustration vanished, and his clothes stayed on. He began to participate in everything, from clearing up the playground, to engaging in sports, going to equine therapy. If we are doing something, Ayham is in the middle, happy and loved. His spirit has changed, from one that was sexually unclean to one that is loving and kind.
One of the most precious moments of our mornings is when he comes to hug and kiss his little sister Alma before he goes to his activities. He has been pursued by love. A love that is clean, pure and kind. That is the love that he now displays.
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