My devotion this morning focused on John 1:12 and on how God loves us as his own children. The love he gives is unconditional. We do not have to do anything special to earn it. It just becomes ours when we let him in.
For someone who spent much of her past jumping through hoops to earn love from her parents I find God’s unconditional love to be staggering.
The words and actions my parents chose to use with me were overwhelmingly cruel. Every word spoken and every action taken ripped me to shreds. It started when I was just six years old and continued well into my young adult life. The day I left their house I had no idea the amount of emotional baggage I was taking with me.
Sometimes when the world goes quiet I hear the words they spoke in anger. The name calling, the threats, the promises that I would never amount to anything all run through my head until the noise becomes unbearable.
Thankfully those moments are rare now because I’m doing the work to heal those wounds. Yet when they do happen I turn to God for guidance.
All this time I thought he was just there to listen, to guide and to support me. I had no idea that giving my life to him meant giving all of that pain to him as well.
Now I know that none of what those two said and did to me matters anymore. God has taken that pain from me. It is his to deal with now.
I also know now that he gave my husband and my daughter to me to replace my lack of unconditional love, support and kindness in my childhood. They both give me that tens times over and now I know that was part of God’s plan for me.
After all these years of childhood pain weighing on my heart it’s finally time to set it down and move forward.
Today feels brighter and a bit lighter. That’s what healing does and giving my life to God is what has brought me to this point.
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