Free to BE Uniquely ME

All my life I have had people .... family, school folk, neighbors, friends, church folk …. you name it … tell me how “different”, "weird", or "strange", I am. And it's not like I haven't noticed.

After all, I was one of the rare 3-year-olds who knew that Jesus was real, and that I could accept Him as my Savior. And it was what saved my young life.

I was also the only four year old I've ever known who didn't buy the Santa story! I mean, please?! You seriously expect anyone to believe that this big old fat guy is going to come down OUR chimney, through that skinny stove pipe, and put gifts under our tree? Come ON!

{Well, the exception was my own kids, of course, because I thought it immoral and unkind to lie to them like that, to confuse their trust, and to insult their intelligence with that mess! We just read "The legend of St. Nicholas", so they understood the madness around them, instructed them on proper protocol of well-meaning grown ups, and let it go....} 

And then, I was one of the few kids who knew in the second grade, during the desegregation process of the sixties, that the whole bigoted mess was a great wrong, and an insult to God!

I've just always been “too old” for my age. My brother always said I was "a 40 year old Martian in a kid suit!" And in the sixth grade when they started rewriting science, and trying to explain away creation... I was the ONLY one who called them out, and took my first D, defending my beliefs!

My external age is just now catching up to my three year old, sixty years later! So. I get it.

How many 63 year old women would choose to leave her own, almost paid for home, drive almost 3,000 miles across the entire nation, alone, and move into a “clean and sober house” to help a kid she met online seven years ago? (Also expecting that move to help heal a struggling marriage relationship? BTW?)

But I did. (And it is.) Because, part of my “strangeness” has always been my ability to hear GOD! And trust that HE knows more than I can see.

The life of Faith is, and has always been, strange to the sub-par life of fleshly living. Because it depends on something that is beyond the five senses!

I can walk in a world that is shaking with injustice, and still believe in the Justice of a Real God. It doesn't always come when I think it should. But I KNOW that it WILL COME! And I will wait for it.

He is faithful to ME, because I faithfully follow HIM. I have learned to trust Him. The times I haven't trusted just haven't proven profitable. The times I have trusted Him above my own intuitions may have been more difficult at times, but I have never regretted trusting HIM!

And to ME it "makes sense", because He is eternal, All-knowing and He sees the end from the beginning. HE knows what is best for us all, and will bring it to pass.

So, if, in following Him, things don't go as everyone else thinks it should have - if, for example,  I seem a mere casualty in His plans, as did the first martyr for the Faith of Yeshua's followers named Stephen -  then I will count myself to have been in great company, and feel blessed to be able to give my all for Him!

My life has been His the whole way. He is totally free to use it as He deems fit. At the end, Stephen got a standing ovation from our Savior! What a way to go! A literal rock star! Lol

I know, most people just "don't get it”. Stuff like that seems unnecessary. But that is because "we" - most humans -  forget about the spiritual forces that are at work in our world. We tend to forget that there is a whole other side that is warring against God, that wants our ultimate, eternal destruction! We forget that there are forces that are after our eternal separation from God for an unseen eternity! It wants ALL of us to leave God, and perish in it's evil darkness!

People, as a whole, because of our fallen nature at birth, tend to live for the moment. We tend to think that all of our efforts are for this world. That this is all there is!!!

But we are plainly told that this world is passing away at some point. That this – our “reality” - is only temporary. We can't count on anything to stay the same, or last, or have our best interest at heart – except for God.

At the core of my weirdness, then, is this person who values security and control above all things – BUT – knowingly - having observed the hard reality that I probably won't find that here – I have simply chosen to cling to The ONE who has promised to give me that in the world to come, and abdicate all my control to HIM.

Oh, definitely, I believe in a “Higher Power” alright! The only difference in me and most people is that I have come to KNOW the NAME of that "Higher Power"! and it is YeHoVaH Elohim – who has revealed Himself to us through Yeshua The Anointed One, and His Ruach Ha Kodesh!

This God has saved my life. Healed my soul. And given me the HOPE that there is a reason to be Joyful! He has given me total assurance that despite the bad stuff that happens, none of it can, or ever will, overwhelm the GOODNESS of our ever loving GOD!

So. That is my weirdness, explained. I know that I am "strange". Very odd indeed, according to this world's increasingly tendency toward the "politically correct", and even to the "religiously correct". I always have been somewhere between those two extremes! But I am okay with that now. I am finally Free to BE Uniquely ME. In Him.

So, It's All good. 

;)

Selah