Drawing Circles
Encounters with children in Shelters
Drug addiction and its impact on children is a difficult reality to face working with mothers and fathers seeking safety or sobriety. For most the roots of their own addictions are profoundly related to family. Our homes matter.
“I started using when I was eleven.” is a terrible thing to hear from someone.
Life-paths full of stumbling stones and the theft of innocence is a judgment on a community. Its loss has longterm impact on so many levels.
“Were your parents addicts?
“Yes, I was born addicted to opiates.”
“The rate of babies born in Washington who were affected by drug exposure before birth has increased sharply over the past 20 years. This condition, formally known as neonatal abstinence syndrome, occurred in less than two of every 1,000 births in the year 2000, according to state Department of Healthdata. In each year between 2013 and 2020, that figure was between eight and 11 babies per 1,000 births.
“The majority of our babies have between three to five drugs in their system,” said Barbara Drennen, founder and executive director of Pediatric Interim Care Center in Kent, the first transitional care facility for substance-exposed infants in the state.” *
“Neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) is a group of problems that can happen when a baby is exposed to opioid drugs for a length of time while in their mother's womb. NAS may occur when a pregnant woman takes drugs such as heroin, codeine, oxycodone (Oxycontin), methadone, or buprenorphine.
These and other substances pass through the placenta that connects the baby to its mother in the womb. The baby becomes dependent on the drug along with the mother.
If the mother continues to use the drugs within the week or so before delivery, the baby will be dependent on the drug at birth. Because the baby is no longer getting the drug after birth, withdrawal symptoms may occur as the drug is slowly cleared from the baby's system.”*
There are many signs of trauma in the faces, behaviors and even postures of children growing up in the disordered and often chaotic lives of addicts, dysfunctional families or struggling to survive parents.
The smoldering scorched Earth is easy to see but theres a way forward towards health and healing, it’s difficult but good things grow when good seeds are sown. God is the gardener of souls and I’m fond of each small flower of beauty becoming visible when He’s at work.
I was sitting at a table drawing and coloring with a little girl in one of the centers the other day. She’s scribbling away, chaos on the paper, no order, just a pattern of circles rolling in and through each other over and over. It was hard not to see it as a picture of her tumultuous life. I tried to engage her, talking gently as I asked which animals I was drawing. She’d chirp out each animal name with confidence: pig, turtle, rabbit.
She was present, but distant in an odd sense that some kids have that I encounter in shelters. She was next to me, but it was hard to read if she was with me.
Then as I was coloring she leaned over from her highchair and grabbed my arm and laid her head on it.
It was just for a moment, but it was a tender recognition that she felt safe. Well, safe enough to reach out to a man she hardly knew.
These are meaningful times to me. Small circles drawn by the Lord that I’m grateful to be able to sit within.
Quiet moments that feel like a small fulfillment of drawing children closer to Jesus.
Matthew 19:13-15
“Then they brought little children to Jesus so that he would lay his hands on them, bless them, and pray for them. But the disciples scolded those who brought the children, saying, “Don’t bother him with this now!” Jesus overheard them and said, “I want little children to come to me, so never interfere with them when they want to come, for heaven’s kingdom realm is composed of beloved ones like these! Listen to this truth: No one will enter the kingdom realm of heaven unless he becomes like one of these!” Then he laid his hands on each of them and went on his way.”
2Jesus called a little child to him and put the child among them. 3Then he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. 4So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.
5“And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalfa is welcoming me. 6But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.