Out of Place

Humidity is my worst enemy. Okay, maybe not my worst, but as a girl with slightly wavy hair, we’re definitely not on good terms.

On a day when water drapes around me in the air like a robe after a long shower, I can’t help but notice the one single hair that curls up, sticks out, or just won’t sit in place no matter what I do. And, boy, do I try to get it to stick in place with sprays and pins and prayer.

The rest of the day I walk around very aware that everyone who looks at me will likely see this rebellious hair because it’s “out of place.” 

Out of place is a funny expression. In my mind it conjures up images of rows of soldiers in uniform. Each one in their assigned spot … except the one whose uniform is unkempt or that is standing slightly left of where they should be. Or the sorority girls all posing for their group portrait with big smiles and the one who goes with the goofy face before planned.

I’ve walked on streets and sat in restaurants where I was out of place. The only white face or the only one not speaking the language. It’s part of the deal when you decide you want to travel to exotic places … at some point, YOU become the exotic one.

In those places, one of my favorite things to do is to visit a church and worship with believers there. Why? Because in that place, though I look different, I feel right at home. I’m not out of place anymore no matter how their version of a worship gathering differs from mine at home.

Imagine my surprise then when one of the locations at home I’ve felt most “out of place” has been the American church -- even though I’m both American and Christian.

You see, I’m a married woman … who knows a lot about the Bible (thank you, Bible school and Bible college), loves to talk and teach theology, watches a lot of “inappropriate” television and movies, and doesn’t want children.

Tack onto that some of my “progressive” ideas about church, culture, and life with others borne out of years of travel and witnessing the beginning of a Christian movement in multiple nations around the world, and well, people don’t know what to do with me.

To be fair, I hardly know what to do with me. Most days my brain just spins around constantly questioning everything I read and hear and even say.

I’m out of place.

And I’m often reminded of it.

Our family once accused us of loving our church friends more than we loved them. We hardly saw our family, but we would skip out early on family events for our scheduled small group times when they conflicted. Or we would send our regrets for a Saturday get together when our church friends needed help moving or Wednesday night dinner when we were serving in midweek ministries. 

Our family didn’t understand that while blood is thicker than water, the blood of Christ is even thicker. 

It binds us for eternity and not just our present lives. It is what unites me with the brothers and sisters in faith that I’ve met on the other side of the globe. It’s the open door to the support system designed for those who were cast out of their families and communities because of their new convictions.

And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him.  And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.” And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.” --Mark 3:31-35

While I love and strive to care for and minister to my biological family, they’ve been shuffled in my priorities. 

My other earthly family -- the church -- has become a higher priority. Today, I know I am to go, baptize, and make disciples. I’m to build out and build up this family. It’s how I choose to multiply.

Choosing not to have children didn’t happen overnight. If you’d have asked me when I first got married at 24, I thought I wanted one before I was 30 … because 30 is some mythical deadline for everything in a woman’s life apparently.

That meant we’d probably start trying at 28. You know, just in case it took a while, and I’d be pregnant for most of 29 and voila! We’d be parents by 30. It’s what we were supposed to do. It’s what everyone else did. 

But every year, my husband and I would check in … and every year, we weren’t ready or didn’t feel it was right for us. Around year 8, we decided we’d check in if something changed. 

We didn’t come to it lightly. Honestly, I knew we were choosing to be out of place, and I wrestled with all the questions.

What about “be fruitful and multiply”? 

I’m reproductively healthy. Does that mean I have a responsibility to have kids because others can’t?

Am I being utterly selfish? 

Isn’t my main aspiration supposed to be motherhood?

The truth is I was never maternal. Not really. My childhood fantasies of being a mom were more about being the powerful woman running the meeting and whose assistant would call to remind about soccer practice, and I’d show up on time with orange slices because I could do it all. (No joke, literal play fantasy I had.)

But our choice wasn’t based merely on my lack of maternal instincts. We never felt the desire or the calling to have children. We did it knowing we’d be out place, and we also embarked on this weird journey knowing that we still had a responsibility to multiply and committing to multiply in other ways.

We knew that if we weren’t discipling children at home, we needed to be discipling others outside it. We knew if we weren’t building a family life we needed to be building a deep Christian community around us.

What we didn’t know is that while we’d be the different ones -- the out of place ones -- that we’d also be left out.

For years we were placed into “young married” small groups because we were married without kids -- even though we had been married for 8 years at the time. And one by one, the groups would disband as couples moved off for another phase of life or had children and weren’t able to commit to community for a season or longer.

As groups went in and out of our lives, we lamented that we didn’t find a depth of community. Year after year, we were reminded we were out of place.

Today, some even call us sinful because of our decision. That we’re shirking our responsibility as Americans and as Christians by not having children. That we deserve to feel out of place because we’ve chosen a different path. That the gospel must not be important to us because we aren’t passing it on through biological offspring.

We fell into a weird, indescribable, and unrelatable hole in the church community. Much like what I imagine single people feel.

I love labels and categories. I’ve taken just about every personality test or assessment out there. I know my MBTI, Ennegram, DISC, Kolbe, StrengthsFinder, and Hogwarts House. I can rattle them off without skipping a beat because they help me make sense of the people and the world around me.

But I didn’t expect to be labeled as one who didn’t cherish her faith or as one who couldn’t easily find a place in her community because I chose not to procreate. 

The truth is that none of us should feel out of place in our church communities.

It is meant to be our first home, our first family. It is the place we find the sustenance we need most -- spiritual.

We are all the weird, quirky cousin at the family reunion. We’re all hiding something, wrestling with ourselves, and trying to survive with a little grace and humor. We’re all made to go, baptize, and make disciples. 

Let’s stop categorizing that multiplication into the how and start celebrating that it’s happening at all. Let’s support one another in our respective missions. Let’s be on mission together -- raising each other’s children, biological and spiritual, together.

Whether we are different by lifestyle, location, or language, it doesn’t matter. We’re all at home and fighting for one another.

Open the doors and break down the walls. No one is out of place here.