I Don't Belong Here

Wake up. Blink sleep from your eyes. Try to recount whatever you left in your brain from the night before. Somewhere between the shuffle to the shower and the water splashing and coursing off your skin, it starts to hit you.

I don't belong here. I don't. Our bravest attempts at beauty and attempting to answer God's call are routinely met with distrust, disdain and ignored. There's no such thing as a perfect fit. There's no such thing as a dream job. There's no such thing as home sweet home.

I have proof: a past littered with brokenness and pain; a present with uncertainty and questions. My father's cancer. Zoe. Divorce. A bad cylinder in our car. My boss. Our tenuous rental. Jen and I singing. Diabetes. A bad back. Bills and bills.

2 "Meaningless! Meaningless!"

says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."

3 What does man gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun?

4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.

5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.

6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.

7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.

8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.

9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

10 Is there anything of which one can say,
"Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.