I stood in the grocery store line, looked around, and realized I would never belong. I had known when I moved here that no one would ever confuse me for a national. But I thought if I dressed the part, at least I wouldn’t have a neon sign flashing “FOREIGNER” across my forehead. Recognizing my wardrobe would require an upgrade, I’d switched from trainers to dress shoes and from sweats to skirts. What I hadn’t factored in was that I could put on the right clothes, but my American curves would never pass for the pencil-straight figures written into the DNA of the nationals. I would never look like I belonged.

Back when global workers packed their goods in a coffin, assuming they would never return to their sending country, reverse culture shock wasn’t a factor. Now, workers zip from “home” to field and back sometimes multiple times per year, and modern tech makes it possible to keep in touch with friends, family, and hometown news 24/7. And while constant contact with “home” makes it harder for workers to enculturate into their host culture, it doesn’t necessarily make it easier to return to their sending culture. The more we are exposed to the rest of the world, the less we belong in the place we grew up.

So, it seems I belong nowhere. But is that true? No, not even close. I belong in my own skin, the curvy body that God put me in, the mind and soul God put into that body. I am fearfully and wonderfully made by the God who loves me. That means belonging isn’t a matter of fitting in whatever place I find myself. It is a matter of becoming aware of who I am, or more accurately, Whose I am.

The reality is that I don’t belong to this world at all—neither my passport country nor my host country. I belong first and foremost to God. When I remember that my belonging isn’t based on where I feel comfortable but on the reality of my place in God’s family, then I always belong.