When you feel you don’t fit in

I have lost the ability to feel instinctively at home anywhere.

The flip side of my own sense of misplacement is that I do feel a little at home everywhere. This is also the nature of heavenly citizenship, we have authority given to us to go everywhere from the one who has had all authority given to Him. We become all things to all people to live out the good news right in the middle of their lives, in a language they can read. 

Transcript

Day 83

We have been waiting since May for Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada to approve the photographs for our visa and confirm our virtual landing. We knew that my three year work permit expired in August so last November we applied for a new visa that would open up a longer term option. This involved having our qualifications assessed, getting medicals, sitting English Language tests, obtaining police checks and employment references, submitting tax records, compiling a ten year travel history of every international trip and biometric data collection. (Although depending where you are in the world you may say data – I just don’t know about that stuff anymore)

After frantic activity came an extended period of waiting. We were told on May 25th that we were in the final stages of approval. Since then we have been waiting, agitating, advocating as the expiry date for my work permit loomed and passed. We had to pay to apply for an extension to our work permit to be allowed to legally remain and in the meantime lost our provincial health coverage and benefits and could not leave Canada. All this has been quite stressful for us and the other 1.8 million people stuck in the processing back log. We finally heard yesterday that our visa has been confirmed which means we are good to be in Canada until 2026.

It is an interesting feeling when you have no status in a country. It focuses your thinking on issues of acceptance, appreciation and belonging. Years ago I wrote a dissertation as part of my English Literature studies titled “The Misplaced Person a study of the central preoccupation of V.S. Naipaul”. It explored themes of alienation and the perspective of an outsider in a situation or culture. I did not know then it would become my lived experience to quite the degree that it has.

When we were thinking about going to New Zealand a couple in leadership counselled me against it. “You are probably too Scottish to fit in somewhere else” was the tenor of their advice. They may have been right but they were in a minority and those who know me best understand that I struggle to fit in anywhere!

Now living and working in our third continent I have moments where I feel genuinely lost and disoriented. Last night we went to the Festival Theatre in Niagara on the Lake to watch a play featuring Sherlock Holmes set in the Isle of Skye. Listening to the Scottish accents and admiring the sets I could just as easily have been at the Festival Theatre in Pitlochry or a Fringe venue in Edinburgh. 

I have lost the ability to feel instinctively at home anywhere.

I will be driving in a new town or bit of road and actually have to intentionally try to remember what country I am in. 

I am thankful that as well as my Canadian residency I have citizenship of the UK and NZ which are all great countries to belong to. I am yet more grateful to have another citizenship which is not of an earthly kingdom.

Paul writing to the Ephesians talks to those who were gentiles by birth

“remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. (2:12-13)

Through the grace of God and the cross of Christ they now access the entitlements of citizenship. They now have what they previously did not have, access to God and  the privileges of belonging through the promises of God’s word and the hope of the gospel. 

Paul in similar vein writes to the Philippians

“But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” (3:20-21)

We do not have to travel to a new country to experience this new citizenship, it is not granted by political will or secured through meeting qualifying criteria. Our new status and belonging is secured by Jesus and granted to us by grace through faith.

This will also mean that we begin to lose the ability to feel at home in the world because we have a new perspective through a new identity. The Philippians are reminded immediately before the verse above that we are no longer to regard anyone from a worldly point of view.

The flip side of my own sense of misplacement is that I do feel a little at home everywhere. This is also the nature of heavenly citizenship, we have authority given to us to go everywhere from the one who has had all authority given to Him. We become all things to all people to live out the good news right in the middle of their lives, in a language they can read. 

The prospect of a new life in a a better country motivates many to take risks and make sacrifices. It is much better for everyone to know peace and prosperity and be able to secure health, justice and happiness for themselves and their children. Millions around the world are waiting for that today. The power to change ourselves, the promise of eternal life, real salvation and true hope are not secured by visas or passports. These things come only from Jesus and there are billions around the world waiting for that today.

Today I am thankful for our Canadian visa being issued and for many who have prayed that this would happen and worked and waited with us. It has been good news two days in a row. We continue to await the plastic card that will confirm what the certificate says and allow us to fly back into Canada

I am grateful for the citizenships we hold on earth which give us enormous rights and entitlements which we do not take for granted. 

I am thankful that our citizenship is also in the kingdom of Jesus which gives us enormous privileges now and the hope of much more in the future.

The writer to the Hebrews makes this point very clearly

“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.  If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country---a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.” (11:13-16)

For them and for us.

I am a foreigner and a stranger now but that does not mean that I do not belong. I have permission to remain but look for something better to come. I am a citizen of tomorrow.