I Am Different

I think that statement sums me up pretty well. "I am different." When I was a kid I often felt like I was on the outside looking in. I had friends, but I wasn't the popular girl who everyone wanted to be friends with. Not a pity-party statement, just stating fact. Even when I was with my friends I found myself thinking differently than them. I didn't want to do things just because everyone else was doing them. Now, I did things that everyone did, but not because everyone did them.I did them because I wanted to.

I remember in college going to The Formal, oh it probably had a name, but I don't remember what it was. Anyway, I went with a group of friends who were kind of the nonconformist types. They all decided to wear Burcon stocks with their formal wear. I could have chosen to fit in with them, but I proudly claimed my nonconformism of my nonconformist group and wore heals. (Now I never wear heals!) Sure I wore the same type of shoes as most of the formal-goers, but I was being different than the group I went with. That is kind of the way I think. I don't try to be different just to be different, I just am.

This is also true in my walk with God. I have always felt a lot like an outsider inside the Christian culture. I believe that God speaks directly to us, and although He gives messages to men and women to be shared, that is not the only and certainly not the best way to hear from Him. I love to hear right from Him! Does it happen all the time? No. Is it because He isn't talking? I don't think so. I think if I don't hear Him it is most likely because I'm not listening.

When I pray it is simple. I usually just start talking like God is sitting right next to me. I often don't close my eyes or bow my head. I am not saying I am irreverent. He is holy and is not my homeboy, but He isn't looking for clever words, to see if I'm peeking, or for the top of my head. Some people really are bothered by this. It doesn't fit with the way they were taught. Honestly, I would love to pray each and every time in a field full of wildflowers with my arms outstretched and my face turned up towards the sun!

I have never had a burning desire to go to church. Shocking, I know! Most of the time in church I felt like I was a small piece of a large machine that had to function a certain way to be doing it the right way. I am not dissing churches! There have been some very good churches in my past that I have enjoyed being at and being with the people there. I have made more friends in church than out of it. This is not, let me repeat, a church bashing! I just never felt right. I tried to do what others did and it didn't work. I tried to find a way to serve, minister, be a part, and I just couldn't. I prayed that God would reveal to me how to fit. You know what? He didn't!

He actually asked me to leave the church that I was attending. Not for another church. Not because the church was bad. Not because I became angry or offended by something said or done. Nope, He simply asked me to leave it. Here I was asking Him how I could fit in and He was telling me I needed to get out. That made no sense to my brain, even my different thinking brain, so I did what comes naturally when I don't understand God. I fought it!

I changed campuses, no that didn't make me fit in better. I felt like I was supposed to take on a leadership role, so I took one on. You know what happened? It failed. I felt a strong pull for people who need to know about God so I signed up to lead a group of nonbelievers. It never happened. I became a part of a group doing vital work, praying, and even as essential as that is for all of us, that wasn't it either. So one day, I finally gave in and stopped going.

A peace fell on me! I thought I would feel quilt, but I felt peace. I'm thinking I even heard a heavenly, "finally!" So I started doing this set-apart thing. I do not get it and I can't explain it. I tried once and got a negative reaction, so I decided that I probably won't do that again. It isn't the first time in my walk with Christ that He asked me to do something outside the Christian way of thinking and I got crazy looks.

It is during this time, because I am still very much in it, that He put in me a desire to know more about the early church. It is during this time that He finally made the picture I had been seeing out of focus come more into a focus. The picture of the church that I described before in a post. That picture is more intensified and bits become more clear to me. I believe I am starting to see how He wants me to be a leader. I knew before that He was asking it of me, but I was trying it my way or that way that I thought it should be done. I am excited as He continues to work in me and prepare me for the next steps.

I am different and I wonder why I find few people like me. I do know some. I actually have family like me. We aren't whack-a-doodles either. I have lived around and known whack-a-doodles. A guy who walked with a staff and claimed he was Moses?! Yeah, I would say that I know whack-a-doodle when I see it. If being different means that I get to grow closer to God, even though it makes some people shy away from me, then I am glad I am different!

***By the way this is my 100th post! Sort of feel like I should celebrate or something! I just hope that at least 1 of the 100 has ministered to someone! That would make me happy to know!