lundi 26 janvier 2004
Looking in
I've always stuck out from my peers. And that has always been my favourite thing about myself. The fact that I truly was unique while everyone else conformed together gave me great joy. I loved being part of the outside world, peering in but not jealous enough to want to take part in it. Rather it was an experiment for me, "guess the next trend," that sort of thing. I felt that I did rather well, being given the ability to observe people rather than be one of them. I don't think that part has changed in me. I still watch people as though they were in a laboratory, running around in an imaginary mouse maze. All my life, I was the anti-trend person, never indulging in the latest fads and gimmicks. And if I ever did, it was to prove that they would soon fade away and were not worthy of all the attention everyone else gave them. I was very conscious of this until it became a part of me. Now I automatically resist anything that is popular, choosing instead to question why things are the way they are. I suppose this is part of the reason why I have never been able to fit in, per se. I'm much too cautious and cynical to a degree.
My identity has been rooted in this my whole life. Even after I became a Christian, I found my identity through the fact that I was still different from everybody else. I thrived on this knowledge, revelling in the things that kept me distinct from the world. Were it not for these distinct things, I would have lost who I was. And that is what has happened to me over the last few years. I found that as I entered a Christian environment, shock, everyone else did the same stuff I did. My differences were no longer appreciated, and I slowly lost what had determined my own worth. I felt that who I was was suddenly ripped from me, and that I was simply left with shards of an image I once knew. Similar and not completely different. I struggle with this and am in the process of protectively rebuilding myself once again. If I am not the collective of what gave me security in the outside world, where am I to be? I despise the thought of giving up my uniqueness in order to belong.
The sermon last night at church talked about how our identity should not be found in culture, but in Christ. And that was the earth-shattering concept I needed to learn. My whole life has revolved around the outer confines of society and my comfortable place there. But now that I am a new creation in God, I need to reexamine who I am. My identity cannot be built around my differences any more; it must be shaped around my new identity in Christ. Lord, who I am? is the question that plagues me every moment of the day.
And then, a quiet whisper comforts me. My daughter. My daughter.
