I woke suddenly, and I could immediately feel the ache in my throat. It was that strained, lump that makes it hard to swallow, and I knew the pain of emotional anguish had followed me outside of my dreams and trailed into the real word. I could still feel the despair from the nightmare I had just woken from, and I felt like any moment the tears I had shed in my dream world would spill down my face as I rose my head from my pillow. So real was the memory of it, that it took a minute or two to understand it wasn’t real. But wasn’t it?
It didn’t escape me, the fact that my dream had been born on the cusp of actual feelings. Feelings I had transversed through my entire life, feelings I had shifted around through the years, feelings I had labeled differently as I tried to deal with them, but feelings that bled into fear for my child in my subconscious it seemed. In my dream, my eldest daughter had not belonged. Like me, like my past, and like my current existence, she had been left out by other girls.
The dream remained vivid as I sat on the edge of my bed in the dark, and I remembered how I yelled at the people around me. They had been downplaying the bullying of my daughter that had occurred in the dream. They had chuckled with a smirk, “kids will be kids,” and I had responded in vitriol how they could never understand. It had happened to me, and I knew the pain of being an outcast. It hurt like hell.
Feeling Like I Don’t Belong
As I sat on the edge of my covers, gripping them tightly, I realized I still resided in that hurt. And in that hurt, I feared for my daughter. There’s something awful about feeling like you don’t belong. You can try and say “screw them” all you want, but the wound remains. It eats away at your confidence unaware. One day you realize that you walk through life accepting of the idea that you don’t fit in. You just don’t.
As I later drove to work I was listening to the radio and a Lauren Daigle song came on. A particular part of the chorus reached into my heart and tugged, as if the Lord Himself was speaking to my spirit, which I believe He was. Tears streamed down my cheek, and I repeated the words to the song out loud.
When I don’t belong, you say I am yours
I can remember when the Lord first began to deal with me about being unique and not fitting in with other women. I had often called myself an introvert, but I realized I was actually a fence builder. It wasn’t that I didn’t like people; I just distanced myself for my own protection. I can recall feeling relieved when I felt the Lord tell me that I was who He made me to be.
At 20-years-old, a man overseas prophesied over me and spoke this. “You have always felt like a square peg. Well, God made you that way, and He’s got a square hole just for you.”
As I grew older I celebrated my uniqueness, which I think was a good thing, but I never felt like I belonged. I called myself a square peg or an outcast. And while it’s lovely to be unique and wonderfully made by the Lord, it’s also a lonely place for a woman in this world. It’s easy to label yourself as an introvert, loner, or social misfit, but we miss giving ourselves the only title or tag that’s needed.
His.
In this world, when I’m feeling like I don’t belong (because I won’t), I do belong to my Father. I am His, and He is mine. For someone who’s been hurt by others, made to feel less or not enough, wounded, rejected, labeled, left out, or left behind, it’s a wonderful feeling to belong. You can hold deeply to His acceptance and unconditional love. You can be yourself, not who you think you should be to win His approval. You can be healed from hurt, have hope for the future, and rest comfortably being who He made you to be. You don’t have to try and belong; you just do. You can let go of fear for your children, and even let go of your past. You don’t have to strive to belong; you just do. You no longer even have to feel like you don’t belong, because you do. You can finally find exactly where you belong. In Him.
