The Loneliness of a Set Apart Life

The Loneliness of a Set Apart Life

By Coach PBJ

I walked into the break room at work one afternoon.

A group of coworkers were having a regular conversation. Laughing. Using language that was just part of their everyday vocabulary.

When they looked up and saw me walk in, they stopped.

And then they apologized.

Not to me exactly.

To the presence I carried.

I stood there for a moment and thought, I did not say a word. I did not look at anyone sideways. I did not correct or judge or even flinch.

I simply walked in.

And something in the room shifted.

It took me a long time to understand what that moment meant. But I understand it now.

When you carry light, you do not have to announce it. It announces itself. And sometimes the people in the room are not ready for what it reveals.

Before I Was Born

Galatians 1:15 says, "But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace."

I want you to sit with that.

Before you took your first breath. Before you made a single decision. Before you did anything right or wrong, impressive or ordinary, God chose you.

Not because of what you would achieve. Not because of how well you would perform. Not because of the titles you would earn or the people you would help or the rooms you would walk into.

He chose you before any of that existed.

And He set you apart.

That is not something you created. It is something you were born carrying. And the sooner you stop trying to explain it, shrink it, or apologize for it, the sooner you will stop being confused by the way people respond to you.

The Loneliness Nobody Talks About

Here is what nobody tells you about a set apart life.

It is lonely.

Not always. Not every day. But there is a particular kind of loneliness that comes with being someone whose relationships are almost always seasonal. Whose circle stays small. Whose closest companions seem to shift from one chapter of life to the next.

And if you are not careful, you will spend years believing that something is wrong with you.

I did.

I looked at the relationships that did not last and I made it mean something about me. That I was too much. Too intense. Too different. That I was the common denominator in every friendship that faded and therefore I must be the problem.

But here is what God showed me.

I am not a permanent fixture in most people's lives. I am a seasonal assignment.

I show up when I am needed. I pour in what I was sent to pour in. I help people get to the next level of where God is taking them. And then my assignment in their life is complete.

That is not failure. That is function.

The question was never what is wrong with me. The question was always what am I here to do. And when it is done, am I willing to let go without making it mean something it was never meant to mean.

What Your Light Reveals

I need to say something that might be uncomfortable.

When people judge you without cause, when they distance themselves without reason, when they make up a story about who you are before they have ever had a real conversation with you, it is rarely about you.

It is about what your presence stirs up in them.

Light does not apologize for being light. It simply shines. And when it shines into a space where there is darkness, that darkness becomes visible. And people who are not ready to face what is being revealed will look for the source of the discomfort.

And you become the source.

Not because you did anything wrong.

Because of what you carry.

I have lost count of how many people have come back to me years later and apologized. People who judged me from a distance. Who made assumptions about who I was. Who kept themselves away and told themselves a story about me that had nothing to do with me.

And when they finally came close enough to see the truth, they found out they had been responding to their own reflection.

They were not uncomfortable with me.

They were uncomfortable with what my life revealed about theirs.

You Are Not Conformed

Romans 12:2 says, "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."

Do not be conformed.

That word conformed means shaped by. Molded by. Pressed into the pattern of.

A set apart woman cannot be conformed. She has been called out of the pattern. She thinks differently. She moves differently. She hears differently. She responds to life from a place that most people around her cannot access because they are still being shaped by what the world says they should be.

And that difference is not a flaw.

It is evidence of transformation.

When the world looks at you and cannot quite figure you out, when you do not fit the mold they expected you to fit, when your peace does not make sense given your circumstances and your joy seems unreasonable given what you have been through, that is not a problem.

That is the proof that the renewing of your mind is working.

A Peculiar People

1 Peter 2:9 says, "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light."

Peculiar.

That word has been used against women like us our entire lives. As an insult. As an observation meant to make us feel like something is wrong with us.

But in this context peculiar means belonging to. Set aside for. Reserved for a specific purpose.

You are not peculiar because something is wrong with you.

You are peculiar because you belong to God in a way that makes you distinct from the crowd. You have been called out of darkness into His marvelous light and now that light lives in you and goes where you go and changes every room you walk into whether you intend it to or not.

That is not something to be ashamed of.

That is something to be a good steward of.

For the Woman Who Has Been Judged Without Cause

I want to speak directly to you.

If your relationships have always been seasonal, if your circle has always been small, if people have misjudged you before they ever really knew you, if you have spent years wondering what is wrong with you because you cannot seem to hold onto the connections that other people seem to have so easily, I need you to tell you something.

Nothing is wrong with you.

You are on assignment.

You were set apart before you were born. You were chosen not for permanence in everyone's life but for impact in the lives of the people God sends across your path. You are there until the assignment is complete. And when it is complete you move on. Not because the relationship failed but because the work is done.

Do not judge yourself by the length of your relationships. Judge yourself by the depth of your impact.

And do not ever forget who you are.

You are a chosen generation. A royal priesthood. A holy nation. A peculiar people.

You carry light.

And light always reveals.

Let it.

The Shadow Work

Here is what I want you to sit with.

How many times have you shrunk your light to make someone else more comfortable in the room?

How many times have you apologized for being exactly who God made you to be because someone was not ready for what your presence stirred up in them?

How many times have you decided something was wrong with you because someone who was not yet ready for their own transformation needed to make you the problem?

That is the shadow.

And it is time to face it.

You were not created to be comfortable for everyone. You were created to be impactful for the ones God assigned to you.

Do the assignment.

And then let go without guilt.

Because you are not too much.

You are set apart.

And that was always the plan.

If you are ready to do the deeper work of understanding who God made you to be and why your life looks the way it does, I would love to walk with you. Book a free Shadow Discovery Call and let's talk about the assignment God placed in you.

Coach PBJ is a shadow work coach, speaker, and founder of the SHIFT Signature Program. She helps women step out of survival and into purpose. Learn more at coachpbjspeaks.com.

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