DON'T BE LIKE EVERY OTHER STORY

By Christine Goings

Alrighty, so here’s something you all probably don’t know about me… I don’t have a stomach. Let that thought sink in for a little bit there. Yeah that thing that holds all of your food… not in me! Pretty crazy right? I mean, how does that work?! 

Well first of all I want to start off by saying that everyone has a story. Not all stories are crazy exciting or super sad, and you might not even know quite how yours goes, but still, you all have one and so here’s a bit of mine. It all started in grade nine, which was such a fun year for me!  The best part of grade nine was that at my school, we got to go on a weeklong camping outdoors trip in the mountains where there was a ton of fun stuff like mountain biking, canoeing, cave exploring, and a bunch of other awesome activities! This trip was something you look forward to all year long! But for me, the trip was bittersweet; both the best and the worst. See, the week before the most exciting field trip of the year, I was diagnosed with Stomach Cancer. The same Cancer that 10 years earlier had taken my mother’s life. Let’s just say it put a bit of a spin on the whole thing for me. While I had a blast and made memories that I’ll never forget, I couldn’t help but have the fact that come Monday, all my friends would be back at school reliving the trip while I sat in a hospital. 

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BECAUSE THROUGHOUT MY ENTIRE EXPERIENCE ALL I WANTED WAS TO BE TREATED LIKE A NORMAL PERSON...  SO I TRIED TO HIDE ANYTHING THAT I THOUGHT WAS ABNORMAL OR WEAK.

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Now it wasn’t really the easiest  to try and figure out what that all meant while canoeing down the river with a bunch of people who didn’t know anything. Why didn’t I tell any of my friends? Well I didn’t want to be treated any different. I didn’t want to be asked if I was OK all the time, or be given stares, or hear any whispering about me. I just wanted to be normal. But what is normal? Because throughout my entire experience all I wanted was to be treated like a normal person, but at the same time, I was different, not normal.  So I tried to hide anything that I thought was abnormal or weak.  

For starters, that meant no crying. Also, being in a hospital bed, not moving wasn’t what I normally looked like, so I just didn’t allow people to come visit me, or I would just pretend to be sleeping when they did come. Normal people didn’t have massive scars across their bellies either, so for a whole year after my surgery, I didn’t even set foot on a pool deck.  My doctor also said that I wouldn’t be able to eat normal amounts of food anymore, but I was determined, and would stuff myself until I was physically sick. It wasn’t until someone told me the most helpful thing, that my thinking changed. She told me that I had to figure out a new normal. Because there are things that you just can’t change about yourself. You don’t get to choose your height, how big your feet are, and you sure don’t choose to have cancer. But those don’t really determine who you are inside. The things that you do and the decisions you make are what shape you and make you who you are. 

Think about if everyone in the world was an exact copy of each other. First of all, how freaky would that be! Definitely no need for mirrors! But also, unless we all were able to be geniuses at everything, the world would just be kinda… meh. There wouldn’t be people who are super smart at math or science and inventing things. There also wouldn’t be really great books because all the authors would write the same. Would art even exist? How about music? Pretty boring place, right?Well God also talks about this. He uses the body as a reference:

1 Corinthians 12
12 The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. 13 Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit.

14 Yes, the body has many different parts, not just one part. 15 If the foot says, “I am not a part of the body because I am not a hand,” that does not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear says, “I am not part of the body because I am not an eye,” would that make it any less a part of the body? 17 If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Or if your whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything?

18 But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it. 19 How strange a body would be if it had only one part! 20 Yes, there are many parts, but only one body. 21 The eye can never say to the hand, “I don’t need you.” The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.”

22 In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary. 23 And the parts we regard as less honorable are those we clothe with the greatest care. So we carefully protect those parts that should not be seen, 24 while the more honorable parts do not require this special care. So God has put the body together such that extra honor and care are given to those parts that have less dignity. 25 This makes for harmony among the members, so that all the members care for each other. 26 If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad.

27 All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it.

So all of us are a different part of the body. And without all of the different parts, we simply couldn’t function… or even exist for that matter. And if we were all the same part, we wouldn’t be able to discover God’s potential. In other words, God created us to be different, to not be normal. But it’s alright because he created us to be like Him. In Genesis 1:27 it says, "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them."


So obviously God isn’t normal either, and he’s perfect! So maybe there isn’t such a thing as normal.  I know for sure that I’ve given up trying to figure out what that would even be! So why not embrace your part of the body. Don’t be afraid to be different because at the end of the day, we’re all just a bunch of weirdo’s!  As it says in Romans 12:2, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” 

God has a purpose for you. You weren’t just copied out of Google images, you were created one of a kind. At the beginning I said that everyone has a story. Well my challenge to you is to not be like every other story. Don’t have a normal story. Have a story that tells the world just who God made you to be.