Dear Survivor: You Are A Child of God

Dear Fellow Survivor,

When I was twelve days old, my parents brought me to the baptismal font in front of our church. My father baptized me in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And I became a child of God.

I can’t say that I thought much about my status as a child of God as I was growing up. But I can say that after I began experiencing sexual abuse I questioned that status. No, “questioned” is too mild a word. After the abuse began, I was positive that I no longer was a child of God. How could I be? What I was doing (actually, what was being done to me, but I was too young to understand that) was wrong. It was sick. It was disgusting. Surely, when God looked at me, he saw not his child but a vile piece of filth.

I don’t know what your experience has been. But I would guess that as you have been dealing with the abuse that happened to you, you also have been struggling with your status before God. If you have, I hope you will join me in taking to heart these words of the apostle John: “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1)

Do these words amaze you? They amaze me. They amazed John as well. You can sense his wonder, can’t you? But the amazing nature of what John is saying doesn’t make it any less true. We are God’s children. We truly are. We are God’s children because God has poured out his lavish love on us in Jesus. Jesus lived a perfect life for us. He died to pay for all our sins. He rose to assure us that his work of rescuing us from sin, death, and hell was complete. Through faith in Jesus, all that Jesus has done to make us God’s children becomes ours.

Our status as God’s children rests entirely on what God has done for us in Jesus. So, the only way our status as God’s children can be undone is for everything that Jesus did for us to be undone. That is impossible. Not even the abuse we experienced can undo what Jesus has done for us. In Jesus, we have been made children of God, and that is how God sees us. Trust what God says, regardless of how you may feel. In Jesus, you are, and always have been, a dearly loved child of God.

In Christ,
Your Brother Survivor