You don’t have to look far on the Internet or elsewhere in today’s mainstream culture to hear that we are all special. I totally believe this is true (see UT2). Every person bears the image of God, but it is expressed differently in each person. There is intrinsic value in human life, and in each and every human who lives it. But that is not the way I want to approach that I, myself, am a singular thing. Instead, I want to talk about growing up, and living, as an outsider, a loner.

As I mentioned in ST1, even though I grew up in a pretty solid home, and in a pretty solid family, I never felt at home. I was not at ease with myself, I was scared of or distant from the people in my immediate family, I felt like an outsider at school. I was scared of lots of things: mean kids, friendly kids, failing at school, excelling at school, failing at sports, excelling at sports, being ignored, being known … the list goes on and on. Why?

The short answer is that I really, honestly, do not know. However, a likely contributor was how I viewed my Dad. I know that our relationship wasn’t as good as it could have been until I was much older. When I was growing up, Dad worked hard to provide for our family. Being a career firefighter is a steady job, but not a way to get rich, so like many of his friends and colleagues in the department, he always had one, and sometimes two, part-time jobs to work on his days off. Combined with the 24-hour shifts at the fire station, this means that he wasn’t home a lot. And while I was scared of a lot of things growing up, nothing scared me more than my Dad.

Please don’t get me wrong. Dad was often fun to be around, and he was someone I could easily look up to. He had a cool job, knew how to do manly handyman chores, rented a cabin for us out of town, took us on really good vacations, and had good friends himself. But he also had a temper. And when he lost his temper, I sometimes thought I would die. Well, maybe not literally, but I had absolutely no idea how I would survive his anger. Once my cousin and I broke a lamp Dad had just gotten, and I was so sure he was going to be upset that I didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t even home, and I was terrified. I could not sleep that night. Mom went to bat for me and talked to him, and told me the next morning that he said it was OK. I couldn’t believe it – it was like I had escaped a death sentence. And so, yeah, in a way, when Dad lost his temper, or when I just thought he might lose his temper, I sometimes thought I would die – I thought I was living on borrowed time, under a death sentence.

Whatever the reason, I never had a very helpful self-image. I would either try to believe that I was the greatest thing the world had ever seen, or I would vaguely believe that I was the worst thing the world had ever dreamed up. I wonder now if my inability to see myself with any perspective at all somehow stemmed from the fact that I just didn’t talk to Dad. I mean, yes, I remember him giving me good father-to-son advice. If I remember correctly, this happened once, when I was home visiting from college in 1987. Really, once. And the advice he gave me was good, but had to do with a decision I’d already made. That’s it. That’s the guidance I remember receiving from Dad.

I do remember once that Mom made him sit down and talk to me about Santa and The Easter Bunny. You know, that talk. We sat down together at the dining room table and, with prompting from my Mom in the other room, asked me, “Do you believe in Santa Claus?” (or words to that effect). I was beside myself with confusion. I knew I needed to figure out how to respond, right now, but I also wasn’t sure what I wanted to say. I didn’t think the Jolly Old Elf or the Candy-Happy Bunny were real, but … well, I was young, and I did not want the holiday supply lines to be cut off. I liked the Elf’s generosity, and the Bunny’s caloricity. So, I said what a lot of young kids might. I told Dad, “I don’t know,” assuming that he would continue the discussion and guide me through the vexing mental minefield until we arrived at a safe destination where I could grow up and abandon my asserted belief in Santa but still enjoy the benefits of Christmas. But his response was unexpected. “You don’t know? Well, that’s just GREAT.” He was upset with me for throwing what was apparently a curveball to him. That was obvious right away. Later, I realized that it should have been just as obvious that he was probably upset with Mom for forcing the issue and insisting that we have that talk at that time and see this is what happens when you do that!

So I didn’t feel like I fit in at home. At school, I was the same person, and while the issues were different, I think it was all fallout from not having confidence in who I was at home. Other kids seemed better off than me or worse off, but either way they were different, and I did not belong with them. Some things I could do well seemed unimportant, maybe for precisely the reason that they came easily. Other things I could do well were things I tried to imagine were awesome skills to have, the most important ones, probably hoping that they were the skills that could save me from a lifetime of not knowing what to do, where to be, or who I was. Things I struggled with loomed large and intimidated me, and it didn’t seem like there was any way I could get better at them.

It’s like I believed that I was a misfit, so I was able to interpret everything around me as confirming that. I thought I was damaged goods, so everything I was good at was either meaningless or something that could save me, and things I struggled with promised to be my doom. I did not know how to talk to people in my family, and I couldn’t really talk to my classmates either. Some of them were cool, and I looked up to them, but I did not belong with them. Some of them were obviously struggling, and I felt for them, but I could not help them, and I did not belong with them either.

What’s really strange is that I still feel this way about myself, and I still see evidence that I am singular, a loner, an outcast.

Today, for example, we did go as a family to have breakfast with my extended family, partly to celebrate my Dad’s 77th birthday. I was included, of course … but that was a planned event. And you can’t exclude me from my own Dad’s birthday breakfast.

The rest of the day? Not so much. The two kids that were home watched a movie in the other room. They talked about it with their Mom, who was the only other person in the house, and invited her repeatedly to watch it with them. I had to ask them what they were watching, and got no invite even after that hint.

One of our kids had been at a camp for a few days. He was returning today and needed a ride home from church. I asked my wife several questions about it, and would get the barest answers imaginable. She took the two kids that were home, and who were the only other people in the house, with her, so that they could see our older son right away when he got back. Even though I talked to her repeatedly about it, she did not invite me. She came in to tell me when she was leaving, and asked me if I needed anything while she was out – a clear sign that she didn’t expect me to go with her.

Earlier in the day, she had asked me if I wanted something to drink, which was nice of her. However, she could see that I already had something to drink. She does this a lot, and I never understand it.

When she left to pick up our son from camp, I went to get my drink, and found that my drink was gone. Hey, when I said I didn’t need something to drink, I didn’t mean to get rid of what I was already drinking.

I just don’t get it. It’s like I’m not there. It’s like she’s just offering drinks to someone who’s not there, so it doesn’t matter if they think they already have a drink or not. It’s like she saw a drink that nobody was drinking, so she poured it down the drain and put the cup in the dishwasher. It’s like there’s one of us that you don’t ask to watch the movie, there’s one of us that you don’t invite to pick up our son from camp.

I know that I could have watched that movie, or invited myself to go pick up our son. But when I feel that I’ve been excluded, I tell myself that it’s ungentlemanly to inject myself back into the situation. I also am afraid that if I just show up, someone really will say that I don’t belong and ask me to leave.

It’s like I’m not here; it’s like I don’t belong with them. I am still scared, I am still confused, I am still the odd man out.

I still believe that.

But I still also believe UT2. And there’s the puzzle. A friend of mine recently commented on how it is incongruous for a person of Christian faith to struggle, like I do, with depression and anxiety. And she is correct. It is also incongruous for me to believe that all people, except maybe me, have intrinsic value because they bear the image of God.

Except that that’s not how I struggle, and it’s not what I think. I do believe that I bear God’s image, and I believe that each person bears it in a unique way. For me, part of God’s work is helping me with depression, calming my anxiety, and reminding me that I have intrinsic value that is different from others, specifically because of my unique history and hardships. On a good day, I don’t suffer from depression or anxiety, or at least not much. And on a good day, I might understand that I belong, and that I don’t need to let fear drive me into obscurity.

That’s one kind of a good day.

But there are other days when the depression is real, and the anxiety is real, and the worthlessness seems real. Those days are harder, but they can still be good days. That’s because, on a good day, even though the depression and the anxiety and the loneliness are very real, I do not struggle and suffer as much as I observe and respond. And some day, it is my hope that His work in me will be completed and that my life, with it’s particular hardships and struggles, will illuminate His grace, mercy, and love in a way that is different from what He wants to do in your life. And in that way, I will finally, and properly, be the singular me that God means me to be.