God Made Me - I Wish People Could See That

I wish more people would actually care about why someone is who they are or thinks the way they think... people, especially those closest to us, are just always so quick to judge... you would hope the people closest to you would actually love you enough to want to understand you, not make you into something you aren't.

We live in a society that just thrives on judging others. All my life I've felt judged, bullied, like I just didn't fit, or I wasn't good enough... But I know I'm not the only one who goes through this at some point in their lives, if not all their lives. There's nothing wrong with being different from what other people expect. God made every one of us who we are, and he didn't use a cookie cutter.

Just because someone is different from you doesn't mean they're bad or evil. God decides what is sin and who is sinning. He is the judge. A different point of view on an issue is not a sin. A different lifestyle is not a sin. A different set of beliefs is not a sin. We are all just trying to figure out life and this world we live in. One set of beliefs or religious views isn't the 100% best. No one has it right. But the one commandment we should all be able to follow is to love one another.

This society we live in makes me so sad... it's depressing the way we all treat each other. People are so wrapped up in their "world views" that they forget to care for one another... to try to live in peace and harmony. And you can't oppose something and have a meaningful conversation about it... you just chewed up and spit out for why you are wrong... but people are so wrapped up in their personal bias that it's my way or no way... We don't have good meaningful conversations any more. We just bicker at each other - what the heck is a rational debate anyways?

I'm at the point I know a good chunk of my own family doesn't even really care, not just about my views, but about me in general (not all of them, but I get more loving feedback online from the ones hundreds of miles away, than I see or hear from the ones close by.) And when I do see most of them, it's usually for seeing my kids, not me - what am I, chopped liver? We stopped attending our old church to attend a new one - how many of them have checked on us to see how we're doing and what we're up to? A lot less than the amount of people I'm sure are sitting around on Sunday gossiping about it.

You ever feel like you're constantly looked at as a misfit or a child? Like what you think or say couldn't possibly hold any merit because people can't stop basing "who you are" off of your past... heaven forbid someone try to get to know you once you've grown up. Like we'll always be who we were... but none of us started out living right, and none of us live right 100% even now... we are all still growing and learning...

There's nobody living right, not even one,
      nobody who knows the score, nobody alert for God.
   They've all taken the wrong turn;
      they've all wandered down blind alleys.
   No one's living right;
      I can't find a single one.
   Their throats are gaping graves,
      their tongues slick as mudslides.
   Every word they speak is tinged with poison.
      They open their mouths and pollute the air.
   They race for the honor of sinner-of-the-year,
      litter the land with heartbreak and ruin,
   Don't know the first thing about living with others.
      They never give God the time of day

You ever just feel like it's you against the world? Outcast? Like you don't deserve to be a part of something because you just don't fit?

Update: God is so good. We had an awesome church service about Spiritual Balance, which is where I seem to be struggling. Also, I was reading Romans 4 over the weekend and this verse really perked me up:

 ^6-9David confirms this way of looking at it, saying that the one who trusts God to do the putting-everything-right without insisting on having a say in it is one fortunate man:

   Fortunate those whose crimes are carted off,
      whose sins are wiped clean from the slate.
   Fortunate the person against
      whom the Lord does not keep score.
Do you think for a minute that this blessing is only pronounced over those of us who keep our religious ways and are circumcised? Or do you think it possible that the blessing could be given to those who never even heard of our ways, who were never brought up in the disciplines of God? We all agree, don't we, that it was by embracing what God did for him that Abraham was declared fit before God?
 ^10-11Now think: Was that declaration made before or after he was marked by the covenant rite of circumcision? That's right, before he was marked. That means that he underwent circumcision as evidence and confirmation of what God had done long before to bring him into this acceptable standing with himself, an act of God he had embraced with his whole life.