Belonging

I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't want to belong.

A person, a family, a club, a sport...if I wasn't welcome, if it didn't exist or it wasn't compatible with my interests, I created it myself.

I didn't have a lot of grace or finesse as a child, so that pretty much left me to my own devices.

The very first record I have of this desire is an autograph book scrawled in my seven-year-old handwriting: "Gretchen - no onions. Vikki - none. Emily - blueberries." (Because apparently, in the course of creating a club of first graders, it is important to know about allergies.) The club never materialized, becoming the first of many failed attempts to have something I could call my own.

After Stephen King's book "IT" came out, I gathered neighborhood children to search the sewers of our development for the creature from the book. I remember so clearly standing on my front porch as a twelve year old girl, a notebook of "plans" in my hand, wishing with every fiber of my being that we would find something...not because of the adventure of it, but because if it was real then the kids would all bind together in the pursuit of conquering evil. I just wanted to belong.

As I became an adolescent, it got crazier. As a junior in high school I formed a team of boys and told them all about the dreams I had: dreams where we populated the planet Kraz and ruled nations together. Except I convinced them (or tried to) that it was real. Maybe they went along with me because they wanted to belong to something as much as I did. Maybe they saw a girl who hurt so badly she couldn't even exist without an alternate reality and didn't have the heart to leave her alone. Whatever the reasons, I will always remember what it felt like to sit at the table in the library and draw maps and make plans for that night's journey.

In addition to my inane fantasies, I tried typical methods: sports, choir, boys. Like flashes of light I would be satisfied for momentary periods and then plunge into darkness when they ended.

I know that the only thing that kept me from ending my life was the thought of my future husband and children. To me, that was permanent. Someday I would never be alone.

I thank God that He brought Steve to me when I was 17. I don't know that I would have made it much longer, my depression and self-loathing at that point being almost unbearable. Steve came in as a rock. He was impressed by my fantasy-world, of stories of spirit guardians and other lives, but his reality stayed strong. He taught me that being in this world could be a good thing; that I could be a good thing in this world. I opened my heart to him, knowing that I was exposing the vulnerable side of me that I had manufactured everything to protect. And he still loved me. And I belonged with him.

We married, and I accepted Christ a year later. The thought that God loved me despite my failures; that He wanted to forgive me for all the things I had done that crushed me with guilt...it was this realization that made me give my life to Him. You would think that it would have struck me then that I belonged to God; the ultimate relationship that would never, ever fail me. But it didn't.

Having the security of my marriage with Steve, having begun the terrifying process of being the real me in the real world, I reached out again. Longing to share my life with friends, I launched myself into best friend after best friend. When I love, I love passionately; when I feel deeply rejected, I plummet just as extremely. And so friendship after friendship blossomed and exploded; a roller coaster of flying and falling. Looking back, I know exactly why: I was wrapping the very essence of my self-worth around how much people wanted to love me.

In 2000 I did it again: feeling hurt over something that was so small in hindsight, I walked away from a good friend and also a group of friends that I had started a book club with. Wounded by the rejection I had fabricated for myself, I withdrew. I spent years without deep friendships, taking that time to explore who I was in Christ and with Steve. When I came out of my "hibernation," I was more grounded. I no longer felt desperate for companionship; I knew that I could stand on my own. I began developing friendships that were meaningful again, experiencing for the first time what healthy friendships felt like.

Last month, I went to a baby shower for the one friend from the 2000 book club I had kept contact with. I knew that the other members had stayed together, and I had followed from afar the close knit group they had become. I was so nervous as I entered the house that I literally shook from it. I prayed, "Dear Lord, help me to remember that I am not the person they last saw anymore. Help them to see that I am no longer as they remember me." And He gave me peace, and I was fine.

Talking to my friend Rebecca later that day, I realized something that I should have understood years before. "I just miss being part of that group," I told her. "I miss the discussion, I miss the in-depth conversations, I miss sharing our lives together."

"But you have all of that," she said. "I thought that I would miss the intellectual conversations and fellowship I used to have in college, but after becoming a Christian I realized that now I have all that and more. Not only do I have fellowship, not only do I have awesome intellectual conversations, but they center around the most important thing in my life: our God. I might not be able to have some big literature conversation with you," she laughed, "but the heart of what you are yearning for is something you already have."

And she was totally right. I wanted friendships? I have sisters. Women who would drop everything to help me if I needed them. Women who tell me what I need to hear even when I don't want to. Women who pray with me when I'm in their presence and for me when I'm not. Women who love me for who I am.

As I stood in an amazing group of friends last night after we had watched a movie together, I soaked in the "belonging" feeling. But now, I put the credit where it is due.

It isn't that I finally took all the right steps to create the perfect "club". Some people who aren't Christians might think that's what it is. But I've tried every human way to manufacture this feeling, and it has never worked. I know it isn't me.

God longs for us to want to belong to Him. And when we throw ourselves at His feet and offer our life to Him, there's a family waiting for us. Brothers and sisters who belong to each other because we share the most important thing there is to share: eternity with a Father who gives us the ultimate belonging.

"He will never leave you nor forsake you." (Deut. 31:6b)


"The Lord Himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you." (Deut. 31:8a)


"I will never leave you nor forsake you." (Joshua 1:5b)


"God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." (Hebrews 13:5b)