Between Worlds ~ When You Don't Quite Fit Anywhere
Do you ever feel like you just belong somewhere else? Like this world wasn't made for you?
I've been feeling this more and more lately. The weight of it settling into my bones with each scroll, each headline, each conversation that leaves me emptier than before.
The news feels like noise. Social media feels like performance. And everywhere I look, I see negativity, gossip, lies, assumptions, manipulations. I'm so tired of waiting for people to be the light in all this darkness.
I'm in serious need of a change of scenery. One I'm hoping to find in our recent move, in carving out more time for studying, in getting more involved in community. Because something has to shift.
The Tension Between Awareness and Peace
There's this tension I carry. This pull between wanting to be aware, educated, experienced, prepared... and also just wanting to exist "in this world, but not of this world."
And nowhere do I feel this tension more acutely than in how I'm raising my children.
On one hand, I feel like I'd be doing them a disservice to stick my head in the sand and pretend the shootings, the stabbings, the bullying, the daily tragedies don't exist. I want to prepare them. I want them to know how to handle difficult and traumatic situations. I don't want to shelter them so much that they can't adapt, can't roll with the punches, can't develop the thick skin this world demands.
But on the other hand? I want to homeschool. I want to protect them from all the darkness. I want to shelter them from the negativity, preserve their innocence as long as possible, and let them just be kids.
I'm struggling with the in between.
How do you balance both sides without becoming an overly controlling helicopter parent? How do you protect without suffocating? Prepare without traumatizing?
The Sins We See and the Ones We Don't
I've been convicted lately in many ways. I'm trying to change habits, attitudes, influences, circumstances in my life as I work toward becoming more Christlike.
But something was made painfully clear to me recently. There are some sins I really don't see as "bad" as others.
And yet, it's said that a murderer is no different than a liar. A glutton is no better than a rapist.
I have issues with this. I know all these sinners can be redeemed, but I don't understand why I take such issue with some sins and not others.
Here in Mississippi, we have more obese people than any other state. We've won that unfortunate title several years running. Yet we live in the Bible Belt. There are more churches here than gas stations. People sit in pews every week preaching about being better Christians, but their lifestyles tell a different story.
Why is someone with tattoos looked down upon, but someone who's overweight isn't? Why is someone struggling with addiction chastised, but someone who commits adultery is just "unhappy in their marriage" and it was time to move on? Why is one person accepted in church for divorce, but another is shunned for drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes?
I know this is a generalization. But in the majority of circles, this is what I see.
The whole purpose of becoming more Christlike is to rid yourself of all things that don't reflect His influence in your life.
But some are convicted of their addiction to alcohol and not to food. Some see their anger as righteous but their gossip as harmless. Some condemn sexual sin while excusing their own greed.
These are the contradictions I wrestle with.
The Danger of Secondhand Opinions
I'm not the type of person who passes judgment on someone based on what I've heard about them. But I've seen an abundance of this lately.
People take what they hear, what other people tell them, as FACT.
For me, I have to have a personal relationship with you. You'd have to repeatedly do something terrible to me before I'd question your morals. You'd have to show me this side of yourself in person, face to face, within our own relationship. That would be the only way I could honestly form a negative opinion.
There's no way I would ever believe what "so-and-so said" about you just because they said it. I also seriously consider the source before basing an opinion. Most "sources" are as messed up as what they're trying to gossip about.
People are so quick to absorb whatever someone says about someone else as uncontested truth instead of doing a little research, instead of having open communication.
That's another reason I don't feel of this world.
Where Did Honesty Go?
What ever happened to being honest?
You don't like what you think your friend is doing? Call them out on it with love, with humility, and with the understanding that you could be wrong.
If you're in the process of creating boundaries and ridding your life of sin, good for you. Your friends should respect that. And if they don't, they were never your friends anyway.
But here's the deeper side of all this. If you're convicted, that means YOU are convicted. Not all your friends. Not everyone shares your morals, values, or determination to change.
You'll lose friends quickly if you start trying to tell them how to live their lives.
This all comes back to being in the world and not of the world.
The Balance I'm Still Learning
So how do you balance this?
How do you remain approachable, friendly, and non-judgmental while maintaining your convictions, all while not becoming a hermit?
How do you protect your children without sheltering them into weakness?
How do you call out sin in yourself without becoming self righteous about everyone else's?
How do you hold truth and grace in the same hand?
I don't have all the answers. But I'm learning that conviction without compassion is just judgment. That boundaries without love are just walls. That being "not of this world" doesn't mean withdrawing from it entirely.
It means being the light in the darkness instead of waiting for someone else to turn it on.
It means showing up with honesty instead of hiding behind politeness.
It means letting my own brokenness make me softer toward others' struggles, not harder.
These are the things I'm trying to practice regularly. The balance I'm still learning to hold.
Because I may not feel like I belong in this world. But I'm still here. And that has to mean something.
