Papers shuffled and chairs creaked as the entire class passed our English homework to the front. I loved the feel and smell of the crisp white paper in my hands. The black words seemed to smile up at me from the papers like they were proud of me for bringing them to life. It felt like handing over something special as I passed it forward.
A voice behind me caught my attention. “Hey, how many pages did you turn in this time Darcy?”
Dread started to fill my stomach as I slowly turned to answer the boy behind me. “Ten.”
“Oh, two pages longer than needed. Aren’t you always the overachiever.” The boy shifted in his seat with a mocking grin on his face. “I don’t do any more than I have to.”
I wanted to sink into my chair and disappear as I watched him turn back to his friends. The normal ones. I was the weird one. The quiet one who liked black words on a page and the smell of crisp white pages. I was the the person whose mind was filled with stories and songs. That never won me any friends. It made me the laughingstock.
That day wasn’t the day my dreams died. It was merely another shove off the path God designed for me and onto the path of “say what others want you to say and do what others want you to do.” It was a gateway that opened satan’s taunts a bit wider. Who you are is flawed. Fundamentally flawed. If you want to belong, change.
Over the course of my childhood until I graduated from college I waded through a tension of wanting to belong, but also wanting to follow God. There were many things that happened that satan used as proof that I didn’t belong, that my personality, desires, and dreams were flawed. I slowly filed them away in the section of my brain labeled “bad.”
The problem with covering up who God made you and what He wants you to do is a growing inner turmoil. The pressure to please people suffocates out your ability to boldly follow the Spirit. If I felt God was leading me somewhere, I was obedient…but I wasn’t open with it. The tension between following God and trying to please people is exhausting.
My vision got really cloudy and all I eventually saw was the burden, I failed to see all the beauty God was showering on me. I failed to see how He had always provided for me and how He never left me.
When I was so low I couldn’t even pray God heard my inner groanings and He provided me a church family than drew me in, loved me, and taught me grace, mercy, and true friendship. He had always provided, but at my lowest point, he showered an abundant amount of belonging on me. It took me along time to see it. The hurt was a gradual wearing down of over ten years. Healing is a gradual building up. The healing of this hurt has also been splayed out over ten years. Healing isn’t always instant.
At the end of February I shared my story of finding belonging as well as seeing God’s provision in my life with my church family. (FYI is’t really hard to condense your story into 30 minutes!) You can listen to it here. In the search filter type in Darcy Schock Fireside chat. Sharing my entire story of God’s provision of my healing and finding belonging was scary. It’s hard to share vulnerably your genuine story, especially when that has been stomped on in the past. Yet I knew God was telling me it was time. It was another step in the healing journey.
After sharing that, I have had conversations with others about belonging. It has gotten me thinking a lot about it. There was not one certain person that chunked away at my belonging and there was not one certain person that built me back up. Rather, it was a collective event, both in circumstances and in people.
I began thinking a lot about community. I think community can do two things, it can tear a person down or it build them up. What is a community? A community consists of a bunch of individual people. I want to be a part of a community that builds others up. To be a part of a community that does that, I have to be a person that builds others up. A person who speaks hope, love, mercy, grace, and truth into the lives of those around me. I have to be a small part of the greater change.
What does that look like I asked myself. How can I pay it forward… if you will?
I want to be a person who:
Is quick to listen and seek understanding while being slow to give opinions.
Believes in people instead of having a critical spirit. I want to be someone who speaks words of life, not of condemnation.
Seeks the Spirit, following where He leads. Even if the majority of people are against you. I think of Ruby Bridges. The little girl who faithfully went to her new school during integration while masses of people raged outside the school, spitting on her and calling her names as she walked past them. Just because a lot of people disagree doesn’t mean they are right. Segregation was wrong even though a lot of people thought it was right.
Is not a respecter of persons. God doesn’t label people according to hierarchy, I don’t want to either.
Finds safety in the Spirit, not in religion.
Is a safe person for people to be vulnerable with.
Accepts the reality that messiness is part of the process. Life isn’t as neat and tidy as we all long for it to be.
As I think back over my hurting and healing, I am not innocent in the matter. People and circumstances played a part in it, but so did I.
Ways I have hindered my own belonging:
I worried too much about people’s opinions of me. Because of my fear of people, I assumed they were right and I was wrong. I was too afraid to make myself understood. And in the rare moments I did, if it was rejected, I rejected myself. I didn’t realize that being misunderstood is okay. I don’t have to be understood all the time, I simply need to follow the Spirit.
I took unsolicited criticism to heart, believed it as truth. My friend recently told me, don’t take criticism from someone you wouldn’t ask advice from. Someone who wouldn’t pray for you and with you and take time to really hear your heart.
I deemed my gifting from God bad and chose not to fully follow it out of fear. I tried to change who He made me to conform and fit in. My husband tells me often now, just because it is different doesn’t mean it’s bad. I may be different, but that doesn’t mean I am bad or flawed.
I saw my burdens and missed the beauty.
As I ponder belonging, I don’t fully understand it all and I have many unanswered questions. I have a book tumbling around my brain, I think belonging will be at the center of my next novel.
But until I hash it out even more I want to leave you with a few final thoughts:
We won’t ever truly belong until we reach Heaven and we hear our Heavenly Father say well done, enter into the joy of the Lord. Until that day, we will always have a tiny part of our heart that never feels like it fully belongs.
We may not feel like we belong in some of the places we are called to. That’s okay. Just because we may not feel like we fit in, doesn’t mean we don’t belong. We may be God’s agent to help someone else. A piece of the puzzle of healing in someone else’s life.
If we don’t feel we belong anywhere, don’t give up. There was a place of belonging I was bemoaning the other day to my husband. But instead of going down the usual rabbit trail of I will never find it… I must be flawed… I stopped and changed course. I said, “well maybe there are other’s out there, I just haven’t found them yet”. Don’t give up. Ask God to provide, then ask Him for eyes to see that provision.
When I was in the depths of the darkness of feeling flawed, like I didn’t belong I wish I truly believed God loved me. You see in the wearing down, I eventually took on the view of what people saw me as as the way God saw me. He isn’t fickle like people. He always loved me and always will, even in the depths of self-hatred. I wish I believed God loved me. There was a lyric that really caught my attention one day as I was listening to the radio. It said this: “If you love me, I am going to let you love me.” God loves us regardless of what others think of us. I think I have finally learned how to let Him love me.
I wished I understood mercy. You can’t shame yourself out of mistakes or messes. But we can understand mercy and grace. Mercy is not getting something you deserve. I spent way too long condemning myself instead of asking for God’s mercy. Grace is a gift we don’t deserve. I spent to long working my way to earn His favor, he freely gives it. Always remember, God gently leads, satan shoves. Don’t let shoves push you off the path God is gently leading you down.
