Good Enough

I was raised in a Christian home with loving parents and I've "known" God all my life. I asked Jesus into my heart at a very young age; I don't really remember it all that well. My story is more about coming into my salvation. As a kid, I remember being told that people cannot earn God's love. In Sunday school, we were told that God's love wasn't earned by being good, and that we needed Jesus because no matter how hard we tried, we could never actually be good enough to earn/deserve God's love.
As an adult, I understand what they were saying. That God's love is unconditional and not based on our works. That we come to the Father through Jesus and not our merit. However, at 6 years old, all I heard was that I would never be good enough for God's love. Over the years, this turned into the belief that God loved me, but he resented it. Like that cousin that you can't stand. If you weren't related, you'd never talk to him! But you HAVE to love him because he's family. God had to love me because he promised he would, but he resented me for it and that resentment grew every time I lied, or talked back to my mom, or skipped my devotions.
Communion was a time of extra guilt. A reminder of what Jesus endured for a retch like me. He suffered so much, and I couldn't even eat my vegetables without complaining. Sometimes I even doubted if he existed. I was so ashamed. I would take the bread and hear, "Really? I did all this for you??"

I tried to pray "correctly." To be proper in the way I spoke to the All Mighty and not complain too much. One night in middle school I remember thinking that God already knows my thoughts so I might as well be honest, and I spent half an hour telling him about all the things I didn't understand and that made me mad. Famine, war, etc. I really let Him have it. It wasn't too long after that that I had an epiphany. God LOVES me. I knew that he "obligation loved" me, but he actually cared for me. He LIKED me. He wanted to be with me. Not to correct or chastise me, but to be spend time with me. He actually loved who I am. WHAT?!?

This changed everything and over time, I began to see this love more and more. It changed the way I loved other people. It changed the way I read scripture, and took communion. I realized that Jesus died "for the joy set before him," and that joy was being with me! It was like meeting God for the first time all over again. And when I went through various trials, God proved his love over and over! He philia loves me. "Philia concerned the deep comradely friendship that developed between brothers in arms who had fought side by side on the battlefield. It was about showing loyalty to your friends, sacrificing for them, as well as sharing your emotions with them. (Another kind of philia, sometimes called storge, embodied the love between parents and their children.)"

I'll leave you with this. This is probably eisegesis, but I'm OK with that in this instance. The bible says that God is love. It also tells us what love is. So I combined those scriptures to get a better picture of what God is like. Again, this is not necessarily biblically sound, but it seems to fit with the God I know.
God is patient with me God is kind to me He does not envy me that he should sabotage me He does not boast making me feel small God is not proud to lord things over me He is not rude He is not self-seeking He is not easily angered by me but abounds in love He keeps no record of wrongs because Christ died to erase my debt He does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth of who I am God always protects me always trusts always hopes for me always perseveres God never fails me