If God hates me...

“If God hates me, then where will I go when I die?”

A 12-year-old girl asked me that this morning at church, and it made me hurt for her. She had read a fictional book about someone who was hated by God and they went to Hell. (I don’t remember the name of the book, and we didn’t really talk about the book much… it just was the conversation starter.) This girl feels like everyone hates her, so she assumed that God hates her, and then she started wondering about her future in eternity because of it, which is just so sad.

The first part about her feeling like everyone hates her just sucks. I’ve been there. I’ve thought that. And I never want to go there again. I hate that people still have to endure periods in their lives (often in middle school) when they feel like they have no one to turn to. They can’t trust anyone. And they don’t feel like they have real friends. From what she said about her family, it seems like there is a lot of love and care and support, but outside of that bond, she felt like she had nothing.

I guess it’s not a huge stretch to assume God hates you when you feel so incredibly unappreciated and unloved by your peers. I just don’t believe that there’s a link between the amount of love we get from our peers and the amount of love offered to us by God. He loves us unconditionally, and our future is not dependent on how much he loves us.

“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Chris, in accordance with his pleasure and will .” Ephesians 1:4-5

That is one of my most favorite verses in the Bible. I remember many tears shed when I started to understand what they really meant (and I probably don’t even fully get it yet). He chose us and he loved us before we even had a chance to choose him or love him. And he loves us in the midst of us feeling loved or not by others.

So, this girl and I talked for a while about a bunch of things, and we prayed together about them, but I still felt like she was confused. There just aren’t words to say that can make her feel cared for or needed by her friends, and that’s what she was wanting (don’t we all?). But I hope I gave her some insight into how much God loves her and how much more that means than love coming from other people. I also hope that she takes on the challenge to read more of God’s word to find out what He has to say about her. I know in the moment that we want easy solutions to our problems, but that’s rarely what we get. We’re offered love by the God who created us, and He wants us to accept it for ourselves and share it with others.