Turbans in turmoil Ezekiel 24

Groan silently;make no mourning for the dead. Bind on your turban and put your shoes on your feet, and do not cover your mustache and do not eat the bread of men. Ezekiel 24:17

There are a lot of hard passages in scripture, and this would be one of them. Ezekiel is a prophet of God to Israel. And at this point they really need one. God is fed up. He has had it. Their sins have become so pronounced that they cannot be cleaned. Sin is so rampant that there is no turning back. And to show them how little He will be sympathetic to their doom when it comes, He sends Ezekiel as a sign. He tells him that his wife will die, and he is to ignore it. He is to not go into the mourning ritual of the day...no taking off of the turban, no bare feet, and no mourning coverings over his mouth. When people bring him food (who knew that this is where we get the impulse to shower people with casseroles when people died?), he is not to eat it. He is to act like nothing important has happened.
Wow. Poor Ezekiel! It isn't like she was the type of wife a guy would love to have out of his life...the passage says she was the desire of his eyes. She was a looker. She was the delight of his soul. She was special and honored in his sight, and he loved her dearly.
And she represented the sanctuary of God. The people of Israel would pass it by and talk of its beauty. They would brag about how they had God and the nations around them didn't. There is an account where even Peter pointed out to Jesus how wonderful the temple was, and Jesus brought him back to the same reality that He brought Ezekiel. The temple would not stand if the people defiled it. And defile it they did. God called them a bloody, murderous people. They were adulterous, in body and in spirit. They caused their children to "pass through the fire," to be sacrificed to other Gods. They adopted the spiritual practices of foreigners, even inviting them in to teach them their ways as if God's ways were not good enough for them. So, knowing this, how could God mourn their destruction?
But to the people, Ezekiel running around in his turban was the thing that would make them question him. The turban was odd enough, with them knowing that he loved his wife, to get them to wonder if God was talking...so they asked. He told them that their sanctuary would be taken from them. That their way of life would be changed by the sword, and that it would be so awful that all they would be able to muster up would be groaning, realizing that God was right in pronouncing judgment on them.
So the question is, we who know God, do we act in ways that make people question what God is up to? Not necessarily to pronounce judgment on them, but to not participate in things the way the world expects us to? I talked to a new widow yesterday, and she was not weepy as I expected. She spoke of faith. She spoke of hope. She spoke of God giving her signs and numbers and other communications that comforted her heart. She was not weeping as the world weeps. You could tell that she adored her husband, and I am certain that she misses him dearly. But as she showed me the pictures she had of him over the past 6 months, you could tell that she wouldn't wish him back. Now how I took this display of her affection and how a non-believer would take it would be quite different. They might think she was crazy, in denial, or heartless. But I see her heart. She wasn't pulling an Ezekiel and denying the death of her husband, but she was not mourning the way the world mourns. She does not fear the future as a widow because the Lord is now her husband and caretaker. She worships. And I worship along side her.
What is your turban? Where are your shoes? How can God talk to the world around you by your response being unworldly? Is God asking you to do something that other people would call into question? Has there been a hurt so deep that God has given that He can turn into a message? It all works to fulfill what God's purpose is stated in verse 27...
On that day your mouth will be opened to him who escaped, and you will speak and be mute no longer. Thus you will be a sign to them, and they will know that I am the LORD.