"The version of God I was taught is so toxic I can't untangle Him from the abuse."
How it sounds in your head: Purity culture damaged you. Toxic masculinity was preached as godliness. 'Biblical womanhood' crushed your spirit. The God you grew up with feels like your abuser's accomplice, and you don't know if there's a real God underneath all that trauma.
"Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you."
-- Isaiah 49:15Religious systems used God's name to enforce human control and called their abuse 'biblical.'
Every time you try to pray, you hear your old pastor's voice or your dad's harsh theology. The word 'submission' makes your stomach turn. You can't tell where their lies end and God's truth begins because they used the same Bible.
Hagar was a slave abused by 'godly' people (Abraham and Sarah) who used her and threw her away. When she fled into the desert to die, God showed up personally, saw her suffering, and she became the ONLY person in the Bible to give God a name: 'El Roi—the God who sees me.' The God who sees abuse victims is the real God.
I REFUSE the lie that the toxic version of God I was taught is the real One. IT IS WRITTEN that God is like a mother who cannot forget her nursing child—that tenderness is His true nature. The harsh, controlling, shame-based version was a LIE built by broken people using Bible verses. IT IS WRITTEN that God is not the author of confusion but of peace, and the confusion I feel is evidence of enemy distortion, not divine truth. Hagar named Him 'the God who SEES'—He sees what was done to me in His name, and He is furious about it. The BARAK blessing over me is the Father's delight, not conditional approval based on performance. I am loved with an everlasting love, and I will discover who He REALLY is beyond the religious abuse.
The Father is weeping with you over what was done in His name. He is not defensive about your anger—He's angry too, at those who used His identity to crush His daughter.