Stranger

Sometimes I wonder why God chose to put me here, in the USA, on earth, at this time.

I feel like an alien, like I don't belong. It's never felt right. This whole world feels foreign to me. I'm always wondering if I'm saying or doing the right things, if my behavior is that of a true human or if I stick out like a sore thumb.

There are some concepts that--no matter how many times they are explained to me--I cannot grasp. Things that most people encounter often and deal with pretty easily. The way this world works is sometimes too overwhelming and over-complicated for me to understand. Call me mentally challenged; I just feel like I can't keep up.

It's gotten to the point where I loathe leaving my house, because the moment I walk out the door, I am instantly self-conscious and paranoid, in turn giving me major anxiety. I cannot be in public and calm at the same time. Maybe outwardly, but inside I am a wreck. I'm always nervous that people are watching me, determining if I fit in as a regular human being.

I'm constantly checking myself, worried that my charade will be discovered, that someone will point at me and yell triumphantly, "Aha! The jig is up! I know what you really are!" To which I would frantically reply, "Great! Now if you wouldn't mind sharing that news with me..."

I feel as if I cannot be free, ever breathe, or relax. "Just be yourself!" some would say. Gladly, if I really had a definite self to be.

I can't continue in the mundane normality of it all, this go-with-the-flow, routine, boring life that humans seem to so easily adjust to--I can't. I cannot do sixty-plus more years of this. So I am desperately praying that God has an impacting, life-interrupting purpose for me, and soon.

Because if it is otherwise, I might as well pull the trigger now.

In writing this, I recall a favorite song of mine and my dad's, called "Stranger" by Holy Soldier. It details how Jesus Himself was a stranger to this world, a total freak that nobody understood. And I wonder if maybe He felt a little bit like me. Now, I would never put myself at the level of the Son of God. No, I'm just curious if this constant, out-of-place feeling was normal for Him too. If it was, there may be hope for me yet.