Like Everybody Else

I think I am the poster-child-been-there-done-that-bought-the-tshirt-sent-a-postcard product of my environment. Maybe environment is the wrong word. I think it may just be a by-product of living. I know that life is a never ending process of learning but in one particular department, I call it that for lack of a better name, I feel like I am just on the brink of an ah ha moment. Of course this ah ha moment is brought to me by my number one teacher, the Lord.

My lesson is about the desire I have to fit it. I sometimes refer it to as being in “the club”. I feel very confident when I say this that there are very few people who wake up and say I want to stand out and be different. Now in saying that I have two disclaimers, first, I am not talking about a lack of individuality. Second, I know that there is always someone who is going to say, “No I want to be different from everyone else.”

I can remember this feeling clearly showing itself when I was in Jr. High. buying the same clothes as my friends so I could be in the group. In high school, I wanted to be one of the popular girls. Maybe not one of THE popular girls but at least I wanted to be in one of the outer circles. I think this is the beginning stage. People say we grow out of it but I have come to think maybe not so much.

If we grow out of it I am not sure that we would try to keep up with the Jones. I don’t think that there would be such pressure to keep the lawn tidy if you have a lawn to keep tidy. I don’t think that every time Oprah mentioned anything on her show that it would be come the “in” thing. We would not have trends, fads and the like. Because really aren’t these things just a way for us to be in ‘the club’?

It’s complicated. At least I think it is. I thought I would be in ‘the club’ once I graduated from college. But I wasn’t, there were the questions: “When will you get a job?” “When will you get married?” By the grace of God, I did get a job, one I even studied for, and I got a job as a youth pastor. The questions surfaced again: “When will you get a real job?” “When will you get married?” Just when I thought I am in ‘the club’ I ventured to the next steps that were presented before me and yet I was ever so elusively, just one more step from being in ‘the club’. It’s funny the next step could be anything: education, health, family, moving, owning a house, apartment living, divorce, chronic illness, condo living, pet ownership, Christmas decorations, church membership, birthday parties the list could go on.

For me, I was certain that if I could just be married I would be a card-carrying member of 'the club'. Of course there was another step: children.

When we were ready to pursue parenthood it did not take long for us to realize that God had different way for us to build our family. Adoption. I am not going to lie, when we started on our adoption journey I was certain I could still end up in 'the club'. My thinking was that if and when God orchestrated it our adoption journey it would afford us the opportunity to be parents. Then I would have fulfilled the next requirement and I could be in ‘the club’.

This is where the ah ha moment comes in. I am beginning to think that no one is really in 'the club'. I have come to believe that we all think everyone else is in 'the club' all the while no one really is. Everyone has something that makes him or her just shy of being card-carrying member. I am just not sure we know that.

God has laid before me the path he has just for me that only I can walk; just as he has done for you. Belonging is part of the human condition I believe. I am beginning to think that God has put this desire in me not to make me feel bad because I never seem to be in 'the club' but so that I will seek him. Nothing this side of the grave will ever fill this belonging. I think it is a little piece of a longing for eternity in our hearts. While I am still here if I let him fill me, and let him define me than being in ‘the club’ does not matter. I am learning to believe him when he tells me, "You are on the right path. Your path looks different when you look at, but if you could see it through my eyes you would see that you do belong you are in 'the club'.