“I Love You No Matter What!
by Melody Tan | 18 June 2025 |
Growing up, the only overseas holiday my family could afford was a one-month visit to England when I was 16. Other than that trip, where I saw a different country through the tinted lens of a tourist, my birth country was the only culture I experienced for the first 20 years of my life.
Yet I never felt I belonged.
Being taller than the average Asian, I stood out physically—but that wasn’t the main cause for me feeling like a stranger in my own country. It wasn’t even because I didn’t fit into the Asian stereotype of being musically and/or mathematically talented. (I often joke that I was kicked out of Singapore because I’m a failed Asian.) There were many reasons behind the sense of discomfort which I won’t detail, except to say I always felt like an outsider in the only world I knew.
It’s difficult to pinpoint just how I knew I was different when I didn’t know what the alternative was, but the fact is that I never felt I fit in.
Don’t misunderstand me: I wasn’t bullied or ostracised. I had a happy childhood, with plenty of fun, friends, and family. The picture I’m painting isn’t one of someone on the outside looking in—merely of someone on the inside feeling different.
A friend summed up my experience succinctly: I was accepted but I didn’t belong.
Acceptance versus belonging
Words conjure up different meanings for different people. For some, being accepted is the same belonging. After all, if a group has accepted you into their circle, shouldn’t that naturally mean you now belong?
Yet there is a subtle difference between acceptance and belonging. Being accepted just means your presence is welcomed at best, and at worst, simply tolerated. Sometimes, you even have to change bits of yourself to be accepted.
Belonging, on the other hand, means you don’t have to try to fit in. You don’t have to pretend to be someone else—you can just be yourself. There is a level of familiarity, comfort and, might I suggest, entitlement. It’s a place that feels like home.
I still find it amusing that while I was accepted by those in the country of my birth, it wasn’t until arriving in a country I didn’t really know much about, much less ever visited, that I found belonging. It was—and is—in Australia that I found the familiarity and comfort I never had the first 20 years of my life. I missed the food of my childhood terribly (and still do), but I found a place that I could embrace and thrive in.
I was free to be myself without fear of judgement.
Belonging to God
Even before I immigrated however, there was somewhere different where I found belonging: with God.
Discovering and learning that I was “fearfully and wonderfully made,” that I was created for a purpose, and most of all that I was loved beyond description, gave me a confidence that I didn’t used to have.
Suddenly, it wasn’t an accident. Suddenly, I wasn’t an oddity. Suddenly, I wasn’t just accepted by the world. Suddenly, I had purpose. Suddenly, I was unique. Suddenly, I belonged to God.
No matter what
I used to think “I love you” were the the most important words we could say to our children. But it turns out there were three even more important ones: “No matter what”.
It’s a statement that I’d often say when my son knows he’s made a mistake.
“Do you still love me?” he’d ask.
“I love you, no matter what,” I’d tell him, because “I love you” only tells him I accept him, but “no matter what” tells him he belongs with me.
It was the knowledge that I had a God who loved me—no matter what—that gave me a feeling of belonging, a feeling that I existed for a reason.
I’m hopeful that it’s the knowledge that he has someone who loves him—no matter what—that will give my son confidence, resilience, and a feeling that he can go on.
In the eyes of a child
As my son grows in his understanding of God, I find myself struggling to ensure he knows he belongs to God, not that he’s merely accepted by God.
This evening, my son told me, “Sometimes, I get angry with God.” When I asked him why, he told me it’s because “God doesn’t protect me from the mean people”.
I had no answer for him, except to empathize, tell him it’s okay to be angry at God sometimes, and suggest he ask God why.
How do you let a child experience the deeply personal sense of belonging to a Being that’s mostly silent and invisible? How do you explain to a child their actions have no impact on how God feels about them, while instilling in them values of being kind, thoughtful, and true? How do you make a child realise their prayers aren’t answered not because they’ve been naughty, but that God sees the bigger picture beyond our own immediate needs?
Perhaps the only thing I can offer my child is a glimpse of God’s love through mine, pray that he will find belonging in a God he’s still trying to get to know, and to simply remind him God loves him—no matter what.
Melody Tan is a freelance writer, content creator, and editor for both print and digital. She is currently the project leader of “Mums At The Table,” a multimedia initiative aimed at supporting mothers in their parenting journey, through education and community. She and her husband live in Sydney, Australia, with their son.
