Made

I have found truth in the adage that says your experience with your parents will influence your view of God. 

For years, I have struggled in my relationship with Him, seeing Him through the lens of my experience with my mother and father. Both of them were abusive sexually, physically, and emotionally, and I believed God to be, too. I believed Him to be quick to anger, as my parents were. Growing up, when I’d misbehave, my mother would threaten to send me to live with my sexually abusive father. It not only terrified me, but instilled in me a belief that if I don’t behave, I will be sent away. With God, this caused me to believe that if I sinned or couldn’t get it together, He would leave me. 

Because my parents showed me conditional love, I struggled to believe God’s unconditional love. I thought there had to be strings attached, or thought I had to earn His love and strive to keep it. I constantly compared Him to my parents, fearing He would be just like them. It caused me to keep Him at arm’s length. 

One day, as I sat outside on the porch talking to the Lord about my fear that He would be like my parents, I heard Him say, “Your parents were made in My image; I was not made in theirs.” I reflected on that for a few minutes and was dumbfounded. He was right. My parents were made in His image, not the other way around. In fact, God was not made. He always has been. 

As I continued to reflect on this and allow Him to speak to my heart, I sensed Him saying that my parents were made in His image, but they did not reflect it. They did not reflect His love or His heart for me. They did not reflect His kindness, gentleness, or safety. When I reflected on what He said about Himself not being made in their image, I realized I no longer could compare Him to my parents. I didn’t even know who He was. I could no longer let my experience with my parents influence my view of Him, because my experience didn’t tell me the truth about who God is and what He’s like. 

Over the years since that day on the porch, I’ve slowly gotten to know Him. He is kinder than I believed Him to be, and gentler, too. His love is unconditional and I don’t have to do anything to earn it or keep it. It just is. I’ve learned and am learning that He is safe and that He will never hurt me. He will never manipulate me or use coercion to get me to do something. He is slow to anger and abounding in love for me. 

I’m so thankful He was not made in the image of my parents. Because He was not made in their image, He’s not capable of being anything like them. If you’re like me and had abusive experiences with your parents or with someone who should have reflected God to you, know that it isn’t how God is. He wasn’t made in their image. They were made in His. And they did not reflect His image to you. Ask Him to show you who He really is and what He’s like. I bet it’ll be far better than you’ve made Him to be.