LOVE and HATE are both four letter words. We curse and bless interchangeably with the two.

I have been struggling with how and where to start with my story. I think I have been trapped by this idea that I must start at the beginning. I realize that for me that is not how it works. In my head is one train and a zillion tracks with sidetracks coming off of those and so on and so forth. You get the idea. This week I have been dealing with some un-forgiveness, hurts and rejection that still cling to me. Today I want to share a few. This is a but a piece of my story and part of the reason why I am the who I am today.

LOVE and HATE are both four letter words. We curse and bless interchangeably with the two.

This is what I learned when I was about four or five years old about God in relation to LOVE and HATE. God HATED me this I know for my step-grandma told me so. She use to wash me with a souring pad in scolding water to wash the evil off me. All the time telling me that God HATED me and would not ever be able to love a dirty child like me. I am not able to convey the physical and emotional pain that came from this nightly ritual when I had to stay with her and my Pappa. (NOTE my Pappa was always good to me I will tell about Pappa another time) After the bath she would dust me down with perfumed talcum powder. I abhor perfumed talcum powder. She would tuck me so tightly into bed that I could not even move. We said our nightly prayer. Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Hello nightmares and restless sleep. I HATE that prayer. I made up my own version for my children. I pray the Lord to Keep me through the long long night and wake me in the morning bright. You do not put children to bed with images of dying.

My first impression of God was that He HATED ME.

Around the age of five and half, six I learned what LOVE was. This lesson came from my step-father and his friends. I learned that the only way anyone would ever love me was SEX. I had to do things and let others do things to me. Now this part of love is extremely important, you must always keep love a secret. Tell no one. You tell; you die. I told, and he did indeed try to kill me.

My first impression of LOVE was wrong in every way.

God HATES me, and LOVE will kill me.

As time went on, little things only made this understanding more solid. My mom (adopted mom, another part of the story) overheard me tell a boy I was talking to that I loved him. She flipped out on me. “You do not love him. You might lust after him, but you do not know what love is. You are too young.” In my mom’s defense, she had no clue about the abuses that I had suffered. Effectively, her words helped to solidify my image that love and sex are the same thing.

God HATES me. In fifth grade a friend invited me to go to church with her. (I had been going to church off and on, Catholic with my adopted dad on Saturdays, and Methodist with adoptive mom on Sunday’s. (From here on out when referring to mom and dad it is my adopted parents. They are my mom and dad. When referencing the others, it will be as bio.)) Trying to keep the train from jumping track. It was a Baptist church. When they had their alter call, she kept elbowing me and telling me I need to go up there and get saved and baptized. (Baptism is another track to take.) “Saved form what?’ She said, “Going to Hell.” I laughed at her and told her that was her God and not mine. We stopped being friends. Fast forward to Jr High. I went to a revival with a friend. Same church. I cried and talked to some guy about being saved. I still had no clue what that meant. So many of the people that I went to school with hugged me and it seemed like they cared about me. WOW, this is nice. That Monday not a one of them would give me the time of day. So, this is what God’s love looks like. I am finished with it. (I will share that walk on the dark side another time.)

My second impression: God’s LOVE is rejection and HATE.

To love God, you hate people. Wait!! What??

Time jump. I ran away when I was 17, got pregnant at 18, and things changed. Life was no longer about me and my pursuit of dying. (Again, that is another track to take at another departure time.) Oh, a baby? I never wanted children. Wow! A baby! I was going to give this life, this innocent child, all the love and security that I never had. I did. My mom gave me a Bible as a wedding gift. I hated it. Time skip. I started reading that Bible, highlighting, underlining, dog earing. Yep. I was going to hell. I was so fearful of God. Chicken Little and the sky is falling, that is what I learned from the Bible. One thing that I did know without a doubt, I did not want my children to go to hell. They were baptized at four and one. This fear of God and His love lasted up until about 2001, 2002.

Third impression: FEAR God’s LOVE. HATE everyone that does not “know” God.

Around 2003, I was invited to go to church with some neighbors. It was a very small country Baptist church. The words that came from the pulpit were that it is all because of women that the world has so much evil. If women did not lead men to sin, then the world would be a better place. After that I was done with church and on the line of being done with God. Seven years of praying and trying to understand how LOVE and HATE and God all went together.

Fourth impression: Is there a God? I knew LOVE. That was the face of my children. I also knew the love that was making sure my husband at the time had all he wanted from me. I was starting to HATE him.

Time, late 2008 early 2009, I stopped hoping, I stopped praying. I was finished. I let go of the drift wood I was holding on to and let the water take me down into the deep. Spring of 2010, something started to change. Summer of 2010, I moved back home, and that fall I got divorced. That summer I met a man who had a relationship with God. He talked about God in a way that I had never heard. He talked to me, and he saw me as a person, not an object. He invited me to go to his father’s church with him. I did. I also made note of every exit. I refused to sing. I did stand, but I was not singing anything that I did not believe in. That winter I married him. Three years of going to church and the scales stared dropping from my eyes. What?? Wait!!

Fifth impression: maybe there is some truth to God is LOVE. But people HATE. I think in 2013 I was baptized. I am still learning what LOVE is. I now know what LOVE is not. I have no room for HATE.

Sixth impression: there is LOVE in God. But people HATE.

2017, I am deeply grieved that I see so many of God’s children feeling HATED by those that profess to love Him. STOP KILLING in the name of LOVE. That is HATE. LOVE and HATE should never be interchangeable.

Seventh impression: I will show all people that God is LOVE and HATE is a different four-letter word.

I have taken this patch from my soul to give you a better look inside. As you can see, it is not as ugly as it once appeared to be. In truth. it never was ugly or unwanted. It just need the right light to shine upon it. I do ask that you handle it with care, for it is still a fragile thing. If you are so inclined, I do not mind if you pass it around for others to see what LOVE can bring.