My teacher sent home a permission slip for our parents to sign to watch a movie in class.
I brought it home, and my parents said they wouldn’t give permission — it was a movie with content they didn’t want me watching at 13 years old.
So when all my friends got ready to watch the movie for three class periods in a row, I went to the office and did an alternative activity.
And honestly?
I didn’t mind.
I was used to being different.
There had already been many times in my life where I had made decisions, or my parents had held firm on decisions, that differed from what everyone else was doing.
And also no one in my class gave me any grief about needing to leave (to my face at least!), my friends were still my friends, I was semi-cool and felt included…
It was all good.
One of my favorite minor effects of being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is that I have gotten very used to NOT doing what everyone else is doing.
I naturally stood out, especially where I grew up, where our religion was a small minority.
From what I chose to wear at my prom, to not attending that Sunday pool party, to sending out wedding invites when my friends from back home thought I was a “child bride”…
I’ve grown comfortable with being different than the world.
The Israelites had a problem:
They really WANTED to be like everyone else.
Each nation has a king who rules them, takes responsibility, and leads them in battle?!
We want that, too!
“That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.” (1 Samuel 8:20)
They weren’t comfortable with being different.
But even deeper than that, they didn’t trust that the Lord’s counsel to NOT have a king outweighed the discomfort of being different from everyone else.
Because when I changed the song on the radio while driving my friends around in high school, it wasn’t for the sake of being different —
It was because I truly believed I didn’t want to invite offensive and inappropriate words and ideas into my mind, which could offend the Spirit.
Being different can be tough — at the end of the day, we all long to feel like we belong and matter in some sort of community.
And if the community we desire to belong to more than anything else is a community of disciples of Christ, then it becomes a lot easier to stand alone, understanding that we are truly not alone when we walk with Him.
Happy Studying!
-Cali Black
One Response
When I was in High School, I didn’t like being like everyone else. I was worried what would happen to me when I went to College in the days of LSD. I wanted to be different but didn’t know how. But the Lord knew how and one day, in a fast and testimony meeting, the Lord said “the testimonies you are hearing are true” and that voice was accompanied by a powerful outpouring of the spirit that lifted me out of my chair, to my feet. I told that Mormon audience “I’ve never been in your Church before and I don’t know what you believe, but if there is a true Church on the face of the earth, this must be it, for never have I felt the spirit in any Church as I have in this one.” I was soon baptized and transferred to BYU where I got a BS degree in Mathematics and spent the next 50 years as a software engineer in a variety of solving multiple engineering problems with computer solutions. In being different, I’ve found safety and security in the gospel that I didn’t have before I was converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.