WELCOME TO MY BLOG! Stay a while and let's get connected. As you read my blogs my hope is that you feel as if you are sitting across from me talking with you and of course drinking a cup of coffee. With God's help, I Provide hope and encouragement to women of faith through practical advice and tools. I blog about my personal experiences in overcoming trials, and I use my background in counseling to give tips and techniques to live a victorious life. Blessings, Stephanie
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Encounter Gospel News: Life Lessons on Contentment
Encounter Gospel News: Life Lessons on Contentment: by stephanie reck 2/10/2014 / Christian Living This article is based on years of what the Lord has given the author about the subject of...
Where do I Belong? Feeling like a Misfit
Dictionary.com defines belonging as something that
belongs. I don’t know your background, but did you get a sense that you belonged?
The world and society says you only belong if you perform up to a certain standard.
We can be insecure when we lack a sense of belonging.
You may have
not known your parents, whether through adoption, abandonment, or death. You
may have not been shown love, acceptance, or felt like you belonged. You may
have experienced being bullied or ridiculed by your peers, and felt the sting
of rejection by certain groups. You may have endured physical, emotional, or
sexual abuse, and you have never felt like you belonged. You may struggled in
school and not made the highest grades. You may have experienced being a
teenage mother. You may have struggled with your health, and perhaps even been homebound.
You may have come from a financially poor family, and struggled with trying to
keep up. You may have a physical disability. You may struggle with your mental
and emotional health.
A misfit does not quit fit into anyone class
or group. There is a sense of not belonging.
I am a firm believer
that attachment and belonging start in infancy and even in the womb. Our
parents give us our first sense of belonging and acceptance as well as our image
of God. Have you felt like you have never quit fit into a particular group? Have
you searched for significance and belonging? I believe, that most girls/women
and some men become promiscuous because they are longing to fill the void of
belonging, attachment, and love. We see in our society every form of trying to
fill the void of belonging and love, whether through gangs, cults, and even
religion.
Psychologist, John
Bowlby, introduced the attachment theory. Bowlby presents that when we are
accepted by others we experience warmth and security, and by contrast when we
experience rejection by others it can cause shame and anxiety. Bowlby’s work
included his theory on the relationship between infants and their caregivers.
It was proposed that strong, secure attachments found in early years were
associated with an individual’s ability to form intimate trusting and
emotionally secure relationships.
Psychologist,
Abraham Maslow, introduced the “hierarchy of needs.” Basically he formulated a
pyramid with five levels of our basic needs, one of the five, he labels love
and belonging. According to Maslow, humans need to feel a sense of belonging
and acceptance among their social groups, including family and friends. Humans
need to love and to be loved by others.
You may be thinking
that you have not received that kind of love and belonging in your relationships,
whether family, friendships, or others. As a child, I did not fit in and belong,
and even as an adult I still have not found one particular group of people I
can say I totally belong. Even though, I do belong to the Body of Christ, there
are stills groups and cliques we form in the church. I am eclectic, a hodge-podge
of various things, and I am not a typical “church girl.” I don’t like dresses,
things that are “frou-frou,” I don’t come from a Christian heritage, I prefer
to hang-out with people who are the misfits, and I have a prodigal son that I
had as a teenager.
Maybe you are physically
disabled, homebound, homeless, an orphan, a widow, a teenage mother, have no
children, single, financially strapped, have health ailments, or even emotional
issues. Maybe you have come from an environment that you did not feel loved and
felt like you belonged. Maybe you were abused, abandoned, rejected, and
tossed-aside. Maybe you were forgotten or misunderstood. Maybe you have always
felt different. You are not alone. There are countless others, including
myself, who have experienced these difficulties.
BUT…Reflect on these truths…
You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood,
a holy nation, a people for His possession, that you may proclaim the excellences
of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
1 Peter 2:9
~ Don’t compare
yourselves to others.
For He chose us in Him before the
creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love, He
predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 2:10
~ Know matter your
family background, you have been adopted into the family of God.
You belong to Christ's family. |
God has a special place
in His heart for misfits. God always had in His heart to take care of those who
could not take care of themselves, the orphan, the widow, and the fatherless.
Jesus did not just come for the powerful, the prosperous, or the religious, but
Jesus came for the blind, the lame, the diseased, the dead, the hurting, the
outcasts, and the sinners. Just look through the Bible and you can find numerous
misfits God choose to use and redeem for His purposes. God is a redeemer that
means whatever your losses have been, He will rectify them. Abraham and Sarah,
a childless couple, God chose to make a great nation though them. Moses, had a
speech impediment and was a murderer, yet God still used him. The disciples were
misfits, tax collectors, fisherman, and just commonplace. Rahab, the
prostitute, obviously a misfit, was used by God and was seen as faithful. Naomi,
a widow and, and bitter because of her circumstances; God sent her a
kinsmen-redeemer, and she was used mightily with her daughter-in-laws.
God still uses misfits today! If you are a misfit, you can
rejoice that God has a special plan and purpose for your life. If you are a believer
in Jesus Christ, you belong to God’s family. Though you may have been rejected
by people or may have not felt accepted; you are accepted and loved by God.
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