Belonging.

 In a recent lecture, (will most likely be a theme in my life during my studies) I found myself confronted with my own inner dialogue and it wasn’t anything new that I didn’t already know. It was more the realisation that this narrative is shaping the way I live, move and exist in the world.

That I don’t belong.

I’ve spent so much of my life trying to fit in. fit into what I think this world wants me to be, what the people around me expected me to be and what I believed I needed to be to belong. Recently I saw a short video where Brene brown said the opposite of belonging is fitting in. “Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.”

Be who we are. Who is that? Who is that when you have spent a life comparing, changing and a lot of the time deciding there is no way I can become a person who will belong, because I can’t even fit in.  I spend so much time hiding, inside my head being so afraid of if people really see me, if people really knew me what would that mean? What would it mean for me to see my own self? Acceptance of self.

What would it take for me to accept myself completely? What would it cost me to fully accept who I am in my entirety?

That who I am, created in the image of God is not only enough, worthy and loved but is also a person who belongs.

Yuck. Honestly, I feel sick at that whole train of thought.

I also can’t help but think to some degree we don’t belong as Christians. We are called to live in this world, but we don’t belong in this world. We belong with our creator, and we are called to live a different way of life, not a religious life that’s a whole bunch of do’s and don’ts. We are called to be the hands and feet of Jesus, in our upside-down Kingdom, serving the last, the lost and the least. Loving our neighbours as ourselves (which we do, we just don’t love ourselves very well). We are called to own our brokenness and see it as our strength.

If you aren’t a Christian reading this, is this what you know of us as Christians? And if you are a Christian, can you honestly say you own your brokenness in a way that it’s a strength? Or do you do everything in your power to hide it away and conform to what you think “your strengths” looks like?

See for someone like me, with a past like mine It feels almost impossible to find any space of belonging in my new self. People don’t openly talk about pain and struggles. People don’t want to look inside at their unhelpful addictions or thought patterns or their striving for acceptance.

People want to belong. But that means to accept oneself exactly as we are, at this moment. It requires us to be us. Most of us don’t spend any time with ourselves, alone to know who that is. Or want to. We move on to the next big thing, our jobs, the next project, the next podcast or tv show or relationships. We get busy avoiding ourselves until we can’t anymore. Maybe that’s burnout?  

What would it mean to take on the call that we are asked to as Christians to see our weaknesses, brokenness, our faults (feel free to use the word sin, but I’m more talking about the things that are painful and hard to face outside of the word ‘sin’ e.g. abuse against us) and face it all, and I mean face it in a “go to counselling for more than a few sessions and tick that box off” face it and accept that perhaps that’s where our strengths lie, in facing the things we thought we couldn’t face.

And what message would that send to a broken and suffering world that is so desperate to belong? Imagine if we, Christ’s people allowed ourselves to be broken, which possibly will look like getting honest and I mean really honest with ourselves about all the things we use to not face ourselves, getting messy, broken and falling apart, then before we live victorious about how good God is we get some help, counselling, therapy whatever it is to renew our minds so we don’t use a spiritual by-pass to avoid our emotions. Because it’s tempting right? “oh, iv given it to God, and I’ve had 3 counselling sessions about it and now I just pray and hand it to him”

What message of belonging does that send to people in the midst of addiction and are in their 6^th rehab? Or people who are isolated and alone because of their dysfunctional behaviours that have driven everyone away? Or even me when I spent so much time getting help and support and still found myself in rehab for a year and a half?

The call I’m placing out is that, If for us to belong in a world that we don’t belong to takes us being honest and open with ourselves in a way that we aren’t afraid to be messy and broken in the world, would you be up for it? Or are you like me when I chase my thoughts about why I don’t belong and just end up at an ‘ew yuck’ place.

That’s the place we need to be. In the places we don’t want to go. In those places we will find ourselves, the self that belongs. And this creates space for others to come and belong. It is the place God will use you the most. Romans 5:3-5 NLT says  We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance.  And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. To think not only can our suffering produce hope for us but it also produces hope for others. But for this to happen we need to allow ourselves to suffer, and that might mean to let go of all the control we have in our lives and break. Its messy, painful and scary and we can lose our sense of belonging in the process.

And we don’t need to try and do this alone. God and community hold us in this space as we search for wholeness and seek belonging. It can be hard to trust this, because we are a people who so much want to feel it before we believe it. Trust can take time to build, especially when we have had our trust eroded and broken time and time again. One way I move through times where I struggle to trust, especially when it’s to do with belonging, is to choose to trust people who love me and hold me.

Choosing to challenge my thinking when all my feelings are telling me the opposite is painful. I want to choose to be brave and believe that I belong, and I belong because my brokenness is my strength. It’s what God uses (and wants to use).

I would love to be able to say I can trust God and his word, what he says about me and belonging but I’m not totally there yet. My hope is, in time, as I and God work on our relationship my trust in Him grows, and my trust in that I belong will also continue to grow. I will know above and beyond my feelings that I have a place of belonging.