When I was a kid in the ’60s things were so very different from today. I now realize what my parents thought when they got my age and all the changes that had occurred in their lifetime. As kids in my generation, we played outside ALL day, in the summer months. It did not matter that it was 98 out we just grabbed a drink of water from the neighbor’s hosepipe, some of you may call them a water hose, watering hose! As a Southern girl, growing up in the south and staying here all my life, it is still a hose-pipe to me. So not everything changed. ha!
Gosh, we played in the creek, build forts and treehouses, the worst I had ever been hurt as a kid was a sprained ankle after falling 8ft from that treehouse we are almost done building. I had to sit the next for 3 weeks out and not get to help finish that treehouse. Oh, man it almost killed me, I wanted to be there for the start to finish, but, it was so cool and we had some fun times in that treehouse, innocent fun. We would get old boards, nails, etc. from our parent’s junk pile to build us that treehouse. I wish I had a photo of that Treehouse it was awesome. We played kickball, softball, dodge ball, in the streets and yes we moved when cars came by not like today they stand in the streets until they are ready to move. We danced with our transistor radio when our favorite song came on.
I have always been a music lover it was my escape from whatever was bother me or just my daydreams as the music played I’d think yes, one day my knight in shining armor will ride in and carry me away. I remember all of my neighbors well on my block, Sharon and Debbie Russell across the street, Sharon has gone home now to be with Jesus. Debbie lives in another state. The Mullins Brothers Mike now also gone home to be with Jesus. The Kelley’s there were 4 of them, three of them still with us.
As much fun as it was and yes, we had fun, I always felt like I really was different from them, not better, not worse, just different. The older I get I see and talk with more and more people that say this as well. As we get older we let go of the way we think we should be and allow ourselves to be who we were created to be. We are each created in His likeness, but different. So, when you look back and think I never felt like I fit in ask yourself was I supposed to? Or was I created to be the very person I was and have become?
In so many things along my journey, I have stepped off the path and took some of what I will call God’s hand to my heart. Sometimes it takes hard lessons for us to see where we are meant to be at that given time in our lives, or where He is setting us up to be next year. Recently, at 64 I have decided that while I may not have always fit in I was exactly what He created me to be, I am made by Him, for Him, and I am to please only Him, first.
I hope that by now at our age we have all realized that God makes NO mistakes nope not one! We make mistakes but God doesn’t. And it occurred to me that maybe I was not to fit in, He made me to Standout! So, if you feel like you do not fit in, maybe you were made to Standout. He uses us all for His glory even in ways that might make us stand out, and not fit in.