Searching for love in all the wrong places? It’s time to experience the Father’s love.

Vikki Waters • September 20, 2021

Not long ago, I learned that when I was a baby, one of my primary caregivers regularly told me that my mother didn’t love me and that’s why she left me to go to work every day. Of course, when this was discovered, my parents found a new babysitter, but the invisible damage had already been done. Although I was too young to understand the words spoken over me, my little heart somehow experienced the power of the lies.

As I grew older, the fruit of this was a painful longing to be loved, which began to show up in my thoughts about myself, my expectations of those close to me, and my self-protective behavior. Deep down in my heart, I believed there was something fatally wrong with me. This lie facilitated an explosive and destructive self-hatred, as I aimlessly searched for relief and love in all the wrong places.

Even when I accepted Jesus into my life, my inner pain kept me from engaging with God’s heart from me. Though I intellectually knew He loved me, my own wounds kept me from experiencing His love in a way that would heal and transform my heart.

My story is not unique. Though the reasons behind our pain are varied, this reality is common to many Christians. Like me, they have not experienced the first love of God for them, and as a result, they do not know who they really are. Jesus told a story about a son like this—two sons in fact. Neither knew their father’s heart toward them. Though one turned to wild living and the other to performance,  their need was the same: a revelation of the unconditional love of their father.

This is an excerpt from the first chapter of my new book Loved Like Jesus.

I wrote it because I want you to experience the deep love that your heavenly Father has for you. Living from this reality as a much loved son or daughter, you can rest in a confident connection with Him and experience abundant living and lasting freedom.

Order my book today for yourself and an extra copy for a friend, your pastor and/or your small group.

Thanking Him for you,

Vikki

 

 

Child of God, Are You Driven By Performance Or Love?

By Vikki Waters • February 9, 2021
When I’d accepted Jesus into my heart, I’d allowed my driven personality and my wounds from the past to inform my faith, and I became a works-oriented Christian. Somehow, though I’d been wooed by God’s unconditional love, once I was in His Kingdom, I was driven by performance, not by love. This, I was discovering, was contrary to what the...

Are you weary? God’s Presence brings rest.

By Vikki Waters • July 10, 2020
God works because of love, not obligation, and it is this reality that He invites us into when He calls us co-heirs and rulers with Christ. Paul describes exactly this quality in the believers in Thessalonica: “We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in...

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By Vikki Waters • November 4, 2017
I grew up in a fairly normal American Christian family being the youngest of five children. A couple of times a week as a family we went to a mainstream evangelical church. At the age of nine I was baptized because some of my friends were but I didn’t really understand what it meant. I...

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By Vikki Waters • October 24, 2017
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By Vikki Waters • October 11, 2017
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By Vikki Waters • September 3, 2017
Before coming to Growing in Grace, my life was a mess. I was in pain, I was angry, I was confused and I only knew God through religion’s eyes. I was raised in a very conservative and strict religion and that is how I saw God. I always felt His eyes of displeasure on me...

You Don’t Have To Do This Alone

By Vikki Waters • June 30, 2017
About three and a half months into my husband Richard’s out-of-state job, I realized I had been internalizing my resentment about being alone. On the weekends, we focused on being together, but during the week I focused on keeping busy with ministry and activity. Inside, I felt depressed and tired. These feelings were an old default that I had become...

Let Down Your Walls

By Vikki Waters • June 22, 2017
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Does God Really Enjoy Me?

By Vikki Waters • June 13, 2017
We are new creations, filled with a new belonging and a new power—all because of Christ’s work in us. In Ephesians, Paul painted a beautiful picture of this: I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith....
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