Feel like you don’t belong?
Remember it’s because you are chosen.
I was born in 1982, and childhood is dotted with my family’s technological adoptions. The VCR was a great addition – setting it to record TV shows, watching them later, and fast forwarding through the commercials. And then came the controversial camcorder; this box-sized instrument which had to be stored and transported in padded luggage. Watching the randomness in our home movies became its own pastime, with no commercials through which we could fast forward.
First days of school were prime occasions for the camcorder. Take, for example, my first day of kindergarten. The scene unfolded in our kitchen. I came in dressed for school, picked up a breakfast plate, and sat down at the table. Interestingly, what stands out to me – from the video, not my actual memory – is that I was wearing red shoes and a green shirt, unusual color choices. But what I do remember is that when we played the videotape, and came to this scene, my sister refused to watch it. She’d leave the room, turn the TV off or fast forward through it. She said it made her feel sad to see me nervous, or as she would say, I looked so lonely. I’m not sure how she perceived this other than I could barely swallow down my scrambled eggs.
Our feelings, sensations, and emotions are clues into what is happening in us and around us. They become problematic and even harmful when we ascribe meaning to the emotion without having searched it for meaning. We take the feeling as truth before we seek the truth in it or through it.
Beginning the school year, starting a new job, being in an unusual place, or just walking down a crowded street can cloud us with cortisol to the point the world rides that sensation into our brain with the message, “You don’t belong.”
If we stay with that surface meaning, we get stuck in shame, because it is true, but only through the truth can we hear it as a blessing. As Jesus says, “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.”
