Oh child who doesn’t belong, oh daughter who has been castaway,

 

I am so sorry.

 

I am sorry that the hands of My children have cast you away when My hands wrestle to keep you in the safety of Their palms.

 

I am sorry for the side glances given to you in judgement and the way that others have ignored your words.  I am sorry for the invitations that were never sent and the texts that never came.  They left you out and kept you from coming, only to return boasting about their parties and their families and their fun, knowing that your lonely ears were listening.

 

I am sorry that they chose not to participate in your life, but I am even more sorry for all of the times that they threw it in your face.

 

So many times you experienced the sting of being overlooked and just as many times, they reminded you of it.

 

I am so sorry.

 

They didn’t want you.  They told you that you didn’t belong to them.  They told you that you didn’t fit in.

 

They told you that it was all in your head.  They painted you out to be someone who was overdramatic or overthinking the situation.  They told you that they forgot or that they didn’t have time or that they ran out of seats, but your heart mourned all the same.

 

You don’t fit in with them and you never did.

 

The world has chewed you up and spit you out in disdain, but not I.

 

Daughter who is lost and broken by a people who dare not deign themselves as one of hers— you belong.

 

Not with them– you belong to Me.

 

The pain that this world has inflicted illuminates your heart with stunning brilliance. The scars and stitches that line your frail heart look less like a road map to despair and more like a beautifully mended tapestry of hope and tenacity.

 

You belong.

 

You belong to Me.

 

You, My forever love, belong to Me, the Eternal One.

 

You belong to Me.

 

I don’t love your pain, but I love that you’ve chosen to love others in your pain.

 

My heart mourns when you are cast out on the street, thrown out like the evening’s refuse, nose turned up in ignorance to your beauty and your worth.  They don’t know your worth.

 

They don’t know your worth, yet you still choose to see the worth of others.  You have a heart of solid gold: it is more valuable than any riches man possess.

 

Oh you diamond, thrown into the streets by the hands of paupers who know not of value when they behold it, I will never cast you out.

 

I say that, but I also see the deep well of betrayal that rests in your hurting heart that questions My words.  You have heard that before.

 

I have seen the people who have made promises and then revoked them in hurt.  I have seen those who have walked away.  I have seen the merciless gestures and the cold shoulders.  I have seen it, and it is as if the cross is lived out all over again.

 

Oh child who has been cast aside, you have no idea how much you look like My Jesus.

 

For every beating that you have taken, both physically and emotionally, I see the blood trickling down Jesus’s face.

 

For every slurred word and harsh critique against you, I hear the crowds calling to crucify Him. 

 

For every time that you weep for the lost who condemn your name and cast you away, I see the tears of mercy streaming down the Sacrifice’s cheeks and falling to an unforgiving ground.

 

He died for them, but He died for you too.

 

He died for you.

 

He walked through what you are walking through.  He died for you to have much better than this.

 

Yet resting in the garden, just like My Jesus, you pray for My will to be done.

 

In your hurt, you still ask for My will.

 

As you are crucified, cast away, and cast down from family and community, you still pause, looking wearily over your shoulder, and beg for their forgiveness on your behalf.

 

You have been thrown out, yet you still bless the hands that did it.

 

Daughter, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

 

They know not what they have left.  They know not what they have abandoned.  Their treatment of you does not reflect the worth that you have.

 

Forgive them, and walk on.

 

I know you want them.  I know you long to stay and I know that you’d give up every part of who you are to just belong in part to them.

 

But it is ok to let go.

 

It is ok to move on.

 

More than it is ok, it is good.

 

I watch intently as you lay in bed, mustering up the strength to walk into a church that doesn’t acknowledge your existence.  I study you as you fight back tears while you lift the brush to your cheeks to paint on a happy face.  I see your heart for people.  You just want to be loved.  You want to be noticed and you want to be drawn into community, yet they divert their eyes from you.

 

It is not your shame that leads them to cast you wayside, it is theirs.

 

It is theirs, but as they have stripped you from your place of belonging, it now feels as if it has become yours too.

 

While their treatment of you doesn’t remove them from their inherent value, their treatment of you also doesn’t remove you from yours.

 

They are still loved by Me, and so are you.

 

You are so so valuable.

 

So daughter, rise.  In love, put on your shoes and trek on.  Wipe your face and go.

 

Go.  Go find your place.  Where My people are, you will belong.

 

You belong to Me, so wherever I am, you will have a place.

 

You love so deeply, so purely, that you fight for the value of other’s to be seen despite the times when yours has been overlooked.

 

Let me tell you, dear daughter, that there is a place where others will advocate for you as you do for them.

 

There is a place where you will not only belong, but you’ll rest in the confidence that you do.

 

Your life has always resembled solitude.  Even when you have fit in, you have always struggled to belong.  But daughter, you cannot force belonging.  You cannot fake inclusion.

 

If it doesn’t feel like belonging, it’s not your home.

 

So as you pack for your journey into the new and unknown, know that I pack with you.  I have taken this trip before, two thousand years ago with a Man who looked much like you.

 

We will walk forward together, hand in hand, searching out your family and your place and your seat in this world.  It won’t always be like this.  You won’t always walk alone.

 

In your place of belonging, there will be no struggling.

 

In the place where you are meant to be, you won’t have to fight to fit in.

 

In the Kingdom where you are meant to rest, inclusion will just happen.

 

So walk with this in mind: anywhere where you have to fight to belong is not the place where you belong— and that is ok.

 

It is ok, because it serves as a reminder to this: if there exists a place where you don’t belong, it implies that there is a place where you do.

 

Keep holding on, keep walking, and find our place of shared belonging.  I promise it’s there waiting on you.