Different

As long as I can remember I’ve been one of those people that was different. Even as a young boy I didn’t look at things the same way as every one else. Not that I was a nerd, geek or strange in some weird way. I was just different.
Where some people saw a rain storm as something to fear or be avoided, I saw it as God’s way of clearing the air.
When the snow would fall and the other kids would have snowball fights or build snowmen, I would take the time to bask in the calmness of it’s quiet beauty.
Or when the winds would blow through the pines and other boys would collect pine cones, I’ll be listening to the angels singing God’s praises.
I remember when my dad died and everyone told me I should cry, I wondered why. It wasn’t that I didn’t love him, because I did. And I was sad that I would have him around to talk to or laugh with, but I knew it wasn’t the end. I couldn’t explain it to anyone they didn’t seem to understand why a ten year old boy wasn’t falling apart.
I have had sadness and tears in my life. But in every case God has been right there with me to comfort me and give me peace. Just like He promised he would do in the stories mom used to read me from the bible.
God has a way of showing me beauty through my tear, like a rainbow after a spring rain.
As a teenager I struggle to be like everyone else because I thought that was how I should be. But that only made me angry, at myself and everyone around me. During this time I wrote a line for a song that when something like this:
I tried to live without you,
But that was one thing I just couldn’t do.
There is a lot of thing I can do,
But they don’t mean a thing without you.
Lamb of God, Pure and true,
Your loving word is ever true.
There’s no more to say or do.
I need nothing more than you.

So I went back to being me…. Being different, because that was what God called me to be.

Carl A. Gooch ~ 28 February 2009