My third-grade Sunday school teacher was a dedicated but scary woman named Miss Hack. She spent most of her time putting the fear of God—instead of the love of God—into her students. For most of my childhood and adolescence, I suspected that God was carefully watching me, just waiting for me to do something wrong so that I would deserve punishment.

Poor Miss Hack had tried to instill respect and awe in her pupils, but too often it resulted in fear and dread. God was not a comfort to me for many years, but a warden. I tiptoed through life imagining a “Beware of God” sign hanging by whatever gate I passed.

After my first real girlfriend was killed in a car accident, I tortured myself for months wondering if her death was my punishment, the anger of God paying me back for all the ways I had sinned. I look back on those days with definite relief—relief that I escaped from a punitive theology that portrayed God as an angry thunderer who was eager to cast disobedient children into the fiery oven of eternal torment and damnation. Through the glorious transformation of the Holy Spirit, I came to know the God whose very name and nature is love. No longer did I live in mortal dread of condemnation and punishment. I was lifted into the reality of God’s cleansing grace. Faith displaced my fear. Hope eradicated my dread. Love filled my heart and changed my entire life. I came fully into the loving, comforting, caring, and healing arms of God.

I have made—and will continue to make—many mistakes, and I will sometimes do harm. But I am a child of forgiveness not condemnation; I am a member of the incarnate body of Christ. I am not defined by my failings but by the God whose name is love.