There were a few situations I was included in, or excluded from that made me ask some hard questions about what it means to actually feel like I belong. How much of this belonging is "them" and how much of it is "me"? Is it my natural bend to isolate, and if that "human natural" part of me wants to isolate all the time, what does it look like to not do this?
I know that I can only blame myself for not belonging, because although not everyone will want me to be part of what they are doing, I cannot control other people's actions. I can only control my response, and my ask to take part and then belong.
Even as I assess this whole process, I see the simplicity of the whole matter... as I complicate things and know where God will lead my wanderings, I see how youth, and children could get stuck here, in isolation. Has this been a protective case I have stayed in because it was too painful as a child to be rejected? What of resiliency and the need for others... community? How long can one go repeating the same path before God's invite to be part of something bigger is more appealing? In my 40th year of life, are these really the deepest longings of my heart?
Isolation will not create things that will pass through the fire or cross to the other side of eternity.
Is it normal to feel like an orphan? Is it normal to think about the way you pictured people and situations as a child then see the death of them? The truth can be a hurtful thing, and with the death of childlike perception comes the life of something much more permanent and true. The passing of a misconception feels like death. God must fill that gap. The foundations of our thoughts must be held in in the hands of the one that hold the depths of the sea. Building new ways to believe and see the world takes time. Mourning the loss of perceptions that once were, takes time as well.
I belong because He has said it is so. I belong to Him, and in Him. As abstract of a concept this is. To live this within the communion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, expressed through His people. Yes, that mistrusted group that I am also part of. But within the trust of a God that spun the universe into existence... I belong. No longer an orphan, but held, not just help but upheld next to the one that gave his word; that is the word.
Don't ask me how to live in this new belonging. Trust is lacking, heart is warn, and my tongue is so quick to know all that is not needed to be said.
Belonging
