Back in the 1970s, I remember my toddler daughter had one of those balls from Tupperware that had various shapes of blocks like the one pictured here. She would try to fit the blocks into the appropriately shaped hole, and of course, had to match up each block with the correct hole, to get the block to go into the ball.At first, she did not understand that and would try to force a block into the wrong hole, which of course, did not work. It was frustrating for her because she knew that those blocks were meant to go inside. But how?
It wasn't until I began showing her where the correct ones went, and she would practice putting them in herself, that she learned to put each block into its proper hole.
Perhaps you have been like those blocks yourself. Trying to fit yourself into a place you didn't belong.
In my family and growing up and through most of my adulthood, I felt like I was the odd one out. I didn't really fit in anywhere. My mother. and sister (who was the oldest of us four and nine years older than I) were two people cut from the same cloth as it were. They liked all the same things. Gardening, cooking, antiques. She also did well in school. I felt that because I didn't have a strong interest or even no interest at all in some things they did, I was left out.
My next sibling was my brother.( eight years older than me) He was the most intellectual of the four of us. College material and smart. But he also had mental issues that interfered with his personality. Issues that made him more of a loner and not able to be successful in relationships. My mother catered to him because of this and I remember her telling me once, "He does not have a family like the rest of you do." And I guess, because he was getting so much of her attention, I felt...well left out.
Fourth on the sibling list was my youngest brother ( three years younger than me). Now, he was the baby of the family. And you probably know how babies often fare in a home. He was the one spoiled rotten. Even his own children were the favored grandchildren of my mom. He too was good in school, excelling in his younger years, in art which he inherited from our father.
And in between two and four, I was a square block trying to fit into a round hole.
I wasn't like the others. No interest in the things that might have made my mother proud of who I was, and I didn't have success in forcing the mold that made me in order for that to happen. And for years I felt like I was on the outside looking in. I wasn't popular at school. I didn't make Honor Society like they did. Heck, I barely got by with grades with which to pass from one year to the next during my junior an senior years in school. And what was worse was that my mom expected more from me than I could give in that area because all three of the others were good in school so I must have just been lazy. And I knew I wasn't. I did the best I could, but no one saw that. And as a really compliant kid all those years, who was I to try to talk to them about my frustrations, let alone argue.
It had been a lonely life back then. And a lot of it filtered into my adulthood because as I grew, walls went up around me, in which I could protect myself from the outside. Now I was inside alright. Just not exactly where I longed to be. And I hid all of my feelings deep within those walls.
But eventually, walls do crumble. And later in life, I found that I was and am who I am because God made me not in the images of my family but in his image. And that made me ok because I no longer had to feel pulled in so many directions that tugged at me from everyone else. The more that I accepted who I was in Christ, the more I accepted that my family also had a right to be who they were in him. And when that realization hit me, it came with great relief in just allowing me to use the gifts, that God had instilled in me. I no longer had to live up to anyone's else's standards. I now had my own because I owned them with him.
And one other thing I learned later as well. Maybe my siblings felt some of the same things that I had felt as they grew up. My sister eventually got into a religion that really was way off in left field for me at any rate. My older brother had problems in his life that kept him locked away in his bedroom studying or doing whatever else he did there for all the years he lived at home. And my younger brother became an alcoholic and to my knowledge, still is. If I could trade my life for any of theirs now, there is no way I would want to do that. So in the end, I am blessed after all that I did not force my way into a hole that did not want me there.
If you feel like the square peg trying to fit into a round hole, or that you are on the outside crying to get in some place that you want desperately to be but can't seem to find the door, take heart. God has made you in one image only. His. And you do not have to find the right hole or door to get there. If you have found God, you have already found where you are supposed to be. It is time to stop trying that and instead use the gifts and talents that he gave you because you know what? They are for his glory, not any ones else. Not that they can't help someone else. Just that, as we grow in grace in the One that made us in the first place, those gifts flourish into who we are and can be used for his glory.
February 24, 2019, If anyone is in Christ Jesus, he is a new creation Old things are passed away and behold all things have become new. 2 Corthianians 5:17
Thanks for coming by today Friends. Have a blessed Lords Day. He loves you!
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