Not Ordinary

I should probably get something out in the open before we get started on this blog. Some of you already know this, some probably have your suspicions, and others may not yet know me well enough to have noticed.

I'm a little... different.

There are things I do and believe in that wouldn't be considered normal by the mainstream's standards. I do these things not for the sake of being different, but because I deeply believe in them. I'll be writing about them plenty on this blog in the future, so I won't list them here.

Sometimes I get lonely. When you do things differently from the mainstream, it's easy to feel like people don't really understand you. In some cases, not only do people not understand, they may stare, talk about you behind your back, or even make hostile or derisive comments to your face. You may be written off as silly, rebellious, or eccentric.

This morning I read this on the Stuff Christians Like blog, and it encouraged me:

"...only ordinary things ever get full consensus from people. Doing something extraordinary should never make complete sense to everyone in your life. People will always support photocopies of what's always been done, but if you start something new, something different, you should expect resistance."

I needed that reminder. It's okay that not everyone gets me, because that's what happens when you don't do things the "ordinary" way. If everyone understood and agreed with me, chances are I would be doing the same old things that everyone else does. And I know, from looking at our broken world, that I don't want to be doing the same old things.

So here's to those of us who refuse to swim with the mainstream when we see that the mainstream is going in a direction we do not want to go. Here's to those of us who, in the face of resistance, hold on to what we believe. Let us not give in to the temptation to become prideful, or to think we are better than others because of the choices we make, or to judge others who don't agree with us. Let's keep doing what we believe in without judging and without fearing judgment. Let's remember that we don't want to merely be different, but to make a difference. We are not silly, rebellious, or eccentric. We are doing extraordinary things.