by Shannon Ness
Coordinator, The Salt Company
While going through a particularly rough situation, Carley met with Anna, a student from Salt Company for hot coco. During their time together, Carley realized that she was not living a life that glorified God 
and that she deeply needed to press into Him to get her through this tough time. She was living a life that was full of anxiety, lacking of loving relationships, and consistent of a self-centered attitude. Following their meeting, Carley attended Salt Company. Bryan was covering 1 John 3:1-10 within the Children of God series. He was talking about his newborn daughter Abigail, and how fiercely he loved her and how she brought him so much joy without even knowing how much she was loved by him. Bryan continued to say that the same thing is true about our Heavenly Father. Hearing about loving father-daughter relationships is something close to Carley’s heart because her relationship with her father is practically nonexistent. As Bryan was speaking, Carley realized that God loved her like a Father loves his children, or how a father should love his children. Her image of a father was one that was drunk, constantly angry, and lacked encouragement and love. She had yet to experience the love of a good good father.
Bryan said, “…that we should be called children of God…because left to ourselves, I can think of a lot of of other words to describe our relationship with God: sinners, strangers, maybe enemies. The view of God that I used to have in my life was a domineering figure, shaking his head in disapproval, or maybe one of anger, waiting for me to mess up so He can punish me. That is NOT God, so if that is your view of God I want you to erase it from your mind, because that is not God.” Immediately Carley began weeping. She never knew a father who loved her so much, who knew she was not perfect, yet loved her unconditionally. She felt like she had been fatherless, but that God wanted to claim her as His own. She was overwhelmed with the idea of being adopted as a daughter of God. Her baptism symbolized her desire to be in relationship with God and to be known as His daughter.
