Lost in the Crowd

   Due to an unusual health-related experience I had last Thursday evening, I had to travel with my parents to an overnight speaking engagement they had agreed to do.  (They wanted to keep me and my health under their watchful parental eyes. :)  While there, I was able to sit with the crowd and hear my parents speak about relationships and marriage.  While it was pretty cool to see and hear my parents work together like that, I felt so out of place.  I was the only single person in that room.  Everyone else was married, engaged, or seriously dating.  Most of them were college students as I am, but I felt like a high schooler.  I felt shy and afraid of being seen as a tag-along.  I have no idea why I felt uncomfortable.  Everyone I talked to was so nice and welcoming.  Yet, I still felt out of place.  It could be because I still was not feeling my best, but I began to think of all the other times I have felt lost in the crowd.
   I am a very shy and reserved person (though my recent experiences in drama have helped me overcome the shyness a bit) and a people-pleaser.  I hate confrontation.  I hate being the new person in a group of people who know each other.  Nine out of ten times those people will talk with each other instead of trying to get to know me.  I feel that in my old church youth group, I had to struggle to become friends with the people I saw most often.  I was home schooled and loved it, but knew very few other people in my youth group who were.  The people I liked the most, I saw the least.  Before I moved from Texas, God enabled me to let go of the people I was trying to be friends with and pointed me toward friends who would support me and whom I could support.  I'll be honest.  I was trying to get into the "in-crowd" at church.  Not that these people were mean or snobbish–they were simply unaware of my insecurities.  And truthfully, I don't remember wondering about theirs.
   I have rarely felt completely accepted into a group of people.  I feel that I have hopscotched around from group to group for a great portion of my life.  This has made me fearful.  I am fearful of polite people who smile and ask, "How are you?" when they see me yet do not go out of their way to include me.  Whenever I was around my friends who went to public school, I felt lost and ignorant when they discussed their doings in school.  Oh, I would ask what public school was like and try to understand their lives, but I could not.  It was so different.  Sometimes, I am so confused that I give up listening.  Then, when I am ready to jump into the conversation, I remain silent because I feel that I have nothing to offer.  When interacting with people of different backgrounds, I fear looking like a fool when I ask about something that only I don't understand.  I am afraid of being the intruder, the busy-body, the tag-along that no one wants.  I, the redeemed daughter of the King of Kings, am just plain afraid of the crowd.  Although HE has more than accepted me, I cower and weep because I want to be accepted and loved by people I fear.
   Over the last few years, God has shown me both sides of the "acceptance/rejection issue".  He has made me aware that there may be people who feel just as lonely and unwelcome as I do–perhaps more.  I feel convicted whenever I ignore someone who appears lonely.  I don't think God wants me to throw away my new friends in order to be a friend to the friendless or something.  I just haven't figured out a way to balance the two.  My school schedule is so rigorous that I feel I barely have enough time to take care of myself and spend time with my new friends.  Let alone go seek out more people.  But, if I have truly given myself up to Christ, shouldn't I just let myself be led by the Holy Spirit and not worry about this?
   Looking back over all my experiences with people, I realize that God has blessed me with unexpected friends if you will.  I was not looking for these friends nor do I believe they were exactly looking for me.  I remember reaching out to one girl thinking, "She looks like she needs a friend."  It turns out that I needed her friendship.  (Our God has a sense of humor–don't try to tell me otherwise!)  These unexpected friends did not take God by surprise.  He knew I needed them, and that they needed me too. I am not the only lonely person on the planet.  I pray that God will continue to shape me into an includer, a person who is bold enough to speak out on the behalf of others yet who is sensitive to those who need. Jesus befriended the friendless.  I cannot call myself His follower if I do not let go of my fears and shyness and do the same.