Family

In recent months I have discovered something about myself: I desperately desire to belong somewhere. Apparently there are three aspects of self esteem: sense of accomplishment, sense of belonging and sense of self-worth. When asked to pinpoint which one I struggle with most, I hands down was able to answer "sense of belonging".

I've never ever felt like I fit anywhere. When I was younger I was more mature and wanted to hang out with adults. When I went to college I became the married one and didn't really have a place with the single college-aged folks. When I'm with my family I'm the older, married cousin who has to sleep in another room so I don't get sick; I lack the coolness factor to connect me to the teenage cousins. In the world of my adult friends I'm either the married one to the singles or the childless one to the mothers. I'm the sober one to the drinkers and the prude one in the middle of crude jokes. Even within the church I feel out of place; I constantly feel like while speaking truth I am outcast from the believers who soften scripture or who fear offending others. I just feel like an awkward round peg trying to fit into a square hole.

I really think that this loneliness, this longing to belong, really plays into the grief I continue to experience over the loss of Hope and Joseph. In no way is this the bulk of the grief, but both with Hope and with Joseph there was a sense that I was finally going to belong to the group of mothers. I was going to be able to join in on the endless conversations about pregnancy, childbirth, nursing, child-rearing, kid stories. I was going to fit, and now I am back to being on the outside again. This loss creates a great ache in my heart.

I know, of course, that where I am to belong is in Christ; He gives me my sense of belonging. I have been adopted into His family. "Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone" (Ephesians 2:19-20). Or in the words of Sanctus Real "When I don't fit in, when I don't feel like I belong anywhere, when I don't measure up to much in this life, I'm a treasure in the arms of Christ." I belong in God's family, I am a treasure to God, even if it's just the two of us there. But I struggle, how do we feel a sense of belonging in a place that is not God's home? How do I feel like I belong in Him in a world that is surrounded by those who hates us?

And that may be part of the point. We won't ever truly belong in this world because Christ is in us and the world hates Christ (John 15:18-19). We won't ever belong or be fully accepted in this world, but perhaps that is designed to draw us closer to Him, and remind us that His adoption is enough.

I know that the only place I will truly belong is in Christ, but it occurred to me a couple of weeks ago that I feel a sense of belonging in a different family, one that I wouldn't ever expect. I belong to the family of sufferers.

When I first lost Hope, I became very mired in the idea that no one truly understood my pain. People could come close or people could pretend to come close, but really I felt my pain was unique and beyond the understanding of others. And to an extent that is absolutely true; there is no way I could ever specifically understand the pain of someone else and equally he or she could never specifically understand my pain. But the truth of the matter is that we live in a world that knows pain, that knows truly the consequences and aches of the fall. And so we become part of a family of those who have suffered.

It is in essence a family all our own, one not created by birth but one created by being delivered into suffering. This family is a strongly bonded family, especially when we have walked the journey of suffering together. As we watch others grieve, as we walk alongside them in their sorrow, as we hear their heartfelt cries we grow closer to their hearts. We are bound together in our suffering and I believe that there is very little that can break the bond that is created by pain. I have come to believe that this is why Christ came...

Christ came for a myriad of reasons, first and foremost to save each of us from the fate of hell. But the reason He could save us, the reason the cross works, is because Jesus lived the life of a man. Jesus suffered temptation at the hands of Satan, Jesus suffered the pain of loss of loved ones, Jesus suffered betrayal of friends, Jesus suffered shame and humiliation at the hands of His enemies, and Jesus suffered the death of millions of sins. Our Jesus knows suffering and that is why He could save us and that is why He can walk alongside us and that is why we can be adopted into His family.

In joining the family of sufferers I have joined Christ. To know suffering is to know why Jesus had to come. To know suffering is to know why eternal life is so precious. To know suffering is to know longing for a world to come. To know suffering is to know that I have a savior who knows me, truly and intimately. To know suffering is to know that my God understands me.

I have come to be thankful that I belong to a family of sufferers. It is much larger than the family of pregnant women and mothers that seem to swarm around me. I belong to Christ. I have been adopted by a Father who knows my anguish, and because He knows my anguish He weeps right along with me. I have a Father who is more deeply grieved for my sorrow than I am. And with Him as my Father I have joined a family that knows what the sorrows of this world are like.

It turns out I do belong somewhere; it is just not anywhere I would have ever expected.