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Five Signs of a Vulnerable Narcissist
The vulnerable narcissist can be difficult to detect. Like a covert narcissist or one who hides his or her tendencies behind a façade of good behavior while undermining others, the vulnerable narcissist has his or her own façade. As the name suggests, the vulnerable narcissist hides behind a façade of weakness. The other two types are easier to detect. After all, a grandiose narcissist is always tooting his own horn and a malignant one has a mean streak a mile wide. My first run-in with a vulnerable narcissist was actually a literary one. C.S. Lewis describes one in his book, The Screwtape Letters, very effectively as the mother of the…
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How to Heal Your Orphan Heart
Most definitions of orphan begin and end with the idea of having no parents. But one can have two parents and still bear deep orphan wounds. Emotional abandonment in the form of critical parents, neglectful parents, or just very immature ones can leave a child scrambling to supply his or her own needs. Life in an orphanage is one of deprivation and competition, but sometimes life in a family can echo the same familiar themes. So many Christians today live in a state of insecurity, fighting for what is theirs, and working hard to earn approval from God and from others. As most adoptive parents can tell you, just because…
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The Intense Vulnerability of God
For most people, vulnerability is not the first word that comes to their mind when they think about God. Usually, people go one of two directions: theological or personal. The theologically minded say words like omnipotent and omniscient. Those who take a more personal route to God say words like loving, good, and grace. But for me, as I move in a direction ever closer to Him, I am regularly astonished by His vulnerability. Genesis leads with God crafting a world and then humans made in His image to live in it. Not as dolls in an elaborate dollhouse or puppets to be manipulated on a stage. He makes humans,…
Healing Through Art & Words
