Everyone likes to feel like they belong, desire it even. The Prince George water tower even says, “You Belong Here, or something like that. Feeling like I belong somewhere has been a struggle for me my entire life. As an Air Force brat, we moved around a lot, so I wasn’t “from” one place with all of these connections to people I had known my whole life. We weren’t incredibly close to my parent’s families, so we didn’t often visit them. My dad was adopted and while I loved what I knew of my grandparents who had adopted him, they were truly wonderful people, I always wondered where he’d come from. I’ve filled out a billion different applications and there’s not a box for “I don’t know” under ethnicity. I just wondered where his side of the family had come from. For years we were told he was Native American, and I grew up learning everything I could about different tribes of Native Americans and feeling like I was connected to something much bigger. When we lived in Oklahoma, I was able to really embrace what I thought were my roots and attend festivals and ceremonies. We had a compelling argument to believe that was the truth and even my dad embraced that heritage.
Through a series of events, dad took an ancestry DNA test, and I was able to recover a piece of his adoption record. I was really interested in trying to trace our family history especially for medical reasons. Everything we had been told was false, the document from the adoption record did not list a father but everything we had been told about the biological mother was incorrect. If my dad had been Native American, it was supposed to have been on her side and that was clearly not the case. His DNA test revealed no Native American origin. Dad and I were crushed. I had been raised to believe that was my heritage and where I came from. It affected the pair of us tremendously.
Fast forward two years, I was helping our oldest son do research, both on ancestry.com and through personal family records, for his final project in one of his history classes in college. My husband’s family is very well documented, we were able to trace his dad’s side all the way back to the Revolutionary War, and actually across the pond even! It was exciting and tethering, at least for my kids. I had a lot of information on my mother’s side filled out for Wesley but on my dad’s side, it was just me and dad, and my uncle who was adopted with my dad.
Fast forward another year, my hubby had an amazing opportunity with the company that he works for to enlarge his sphere of influence and serve them in a greater capacity. This meant uprooting from his hometown where he had lived his entire life, and I had lived with him for 22 years, the place I had finally started calling home, and forgetting I wasn’t actually “from” there. We moved north for 6 months and then halfway across the country. This is the essence of “Untethered.” I thought I’d respond to it better than he would because this was my childhood all over again. I had experience with moving. What I was not prepared for was that I finally felt like I really belonged somewhere, so when people in our new place ask where we are from, I struggle with the answer, because I’m not technically from anywhere. The tailspin was and still is rough, BUT GOD.
I often do an exercise with youth and others for several different reasons which is derived from the movie, “Overcomer.” The principal, played by Pricilla Shirer, encourages the girl in the movie to look at the first two chapters of Ephesians and underline or highlight all of the things the Bible tells her that she is in Christ, and make an “I AM” list. Look at the example below.
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he[b] predestined us for adoption to sonship[c] through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, 9 he[d] made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.
11 In him we were also chosen,[e] having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
Ephesians 1:3-14
From the verses I see that in Christ I am, blessed, chosen, loved, adopted, redeemed, forgiven, marked, God’s possession. For someone feeling unwanted, unloved, and like they don’t belong, these are powerful words. That God knows all your crazy, all your sins, shortcomings, and failures and still loved you enough to send His son, Jesus, to die for those sins. That he still loves and wants me (and you) even though I’m a mess!
When I see “marked” it makes me think of another verse in Revelation 3 where Jesus is having John write letters to the churches encouraging, rebuking, and exhorting them. At one point He says I will write on him the name of my God, later in 22:4, it says His name will be on their foreheads. It makes me think of Toy Story though, when Buzz and Woody share a bond even though they are very different, because they both belong to Andy and the bottom of their feet have “ANDY” written on them. If I was ever to get a tattoo, I think I’d get Jesus on the bottom of my foot! Because I do belong, I am His and He says He will confess my name before His Father!
I have an origin story and roots that go far beyond this fallen, broken world, and you do too. In Jeremiah 1:5 God tells Jeremiah that God knew him before God formed him in his mother’s womb and set Jeremiah apart to be God’s prophet to the nations. This is just as true for us as it was for Jeremiah, God knew us before He formed us in our mother’s womb too.
In Psalm 139:13, David while praising God, says that God created his innermost being and knit him together in his mother’s womb. We are truly God’s and there is such comfort in knowing that we belong to Him, and He promises to be with us through the presence of the Holy Spirit, and that because we have repented and believed we will see Him face to face for all eternity. I AM FROM somewhere; I am a citizen of heaven on assignment here! Maybe I don’t know my ethnicity, and where my family has lived over the generations, but I know that I am a child of God and I have a huge family of believers all over the globe. I’m tethered to them through the bond we have in Christ. Whether you admit or believe it or not, you have a Creator, your manufacturer and mine are the same, you don’t even have to be a believer to have that in common with me, so we are bonded in a way too. I am so grateful to belong to God and to be wanted, chosen, loved, and adopted into the body of Christ where I find my purpose and belonging.
Raychel Writes 