As many know, I’m an administrator at Gentle Christians Mothers. What a wonderful site!  And every so often, someone posts about not feeling like they fit on or not feeling welcome or some other version of that idea.  There are always lots of women who say they feel the same, and some who say they used to.  From my own experience and what has been shared by women who say they used to but now don’t I wanted to talk about what I see being the difference between fitting in or not.

First, GCM is more than a typical message board.  It’s an intentional online community. For those who don’t know what that is or have never experienced it, it’s real relationships formed in cyberspace.  When the twins were born premature and with all their complications it was my friends from all over the world through GCM who supported me both in prayer and in very tangible and practical ways.  Calls of support, help with needs, gifts for my other children going through the crisis with us . . . words simply cannot express the “real” community that exists there.

So, then, what is the difference between “fitting in” and “not”?  Because the usual assumption is that there are cliques and popular people or other such typical social constructs.

From my own personal experience I’d have to say it is really about how much you invest in the community yourself.  I honestly wouldn’t say I’m “popular”–or if some feel that way it doesn’t affect me.  I’m not there for what I can get for myself. I’m there in a mutual relationship with lots of women.  I’m concerned less with how many prayers I get in a thread than how many I’ve offered.  I’m concerned less with how many responses I get to something I say than how many times I’ve tried to be an encouragement, or a voice of practicality, or just a friend.

Recently I posted about an upcoming visit with my endo and my hopes and fears and, yes, I got lots of prayers.  But I posted the update and last I was in the forum I don’t think anyone had even read the update. That’s not “popular”. That’s just life on a very busy message board.  GCM has over 1800 registered users and a large number of them are regular posters.  I can be gone for one day and come home to 14 pages of NEW posts.  Sometimes I miss people’s updates for weeks and then wonder how on earth I missed that–even when I was hoping it would be given.  Sometimes I note a post and want to go back and follow up but forget the title and the forum and can’t find it until it happens back into my new posts feature.  Life happens–and it happens fast on the world wide web.

I so wish women who didn’t feel like they fit in would realize they need to take some charge in forging a place for themselves.  Love yourself and then love your neighbor as yourself.  Don’t worry about having the perfect words of encouragement–just give some. Don’t worry about having the perfect advice–share your experience.  Don’t worry about making people feel any certain way in response to something you say–just be YOU. And as we get to know you and you get to know us you will get *through* that new, awkward, ‘I don’t know anyone’ stage we all went through when we joined the board.  Someday you may just be the oldtimer thought to be in a clique who can love on someone new and share with them how to find their place.