Loving My Oddities Like God Does
A devotional by Jessica Brodie
Have you ever noticed that the little personal oddities and quirks we bring to our family or friendship group are a lot like the gifts we bring to the Kingdom of Heaven?
Recently, my family—four teens, my husband, and me—went bowling for the first time in ages. Our oldest was home from college on spring break, and we had so much fun. About halfway through, I just started laughing to myself. That’s because every one of our family members has a different style, and they’re all hilarious.
Our youngest, a football player, brings all his muscle power to the table, but he does this little leap at the end that almost makes throwing the ball look like a dance.
Our second youngest walks up to the very edge to the line and then she stands there, swinging the ball vigorously back and forth before launching it. Her sister, our second oldest, does what I can only call “the thump”—sort of dropping the ball and letting the weight of it slowly gain momentum as it rolls toward the pins (more often than not, she hits dead center). Our oldest, the family perfectionist, approaches the game much like you’d expect—with laser precision, which sometimes results in a strike and sometimes not.
My husband brings his boundless enthusiasm to the game, and me? I’m wildly inconsistent. I switch up balls every other turn, trying different weights and finger holes. Sometimes I use my left hand just for variety, and sometimes I get a strike while sometimes it’s a gutter. I’m all over the map.
It occurred to me driving home that it’s much like the different spiritual gifts we all have. A lot of our gifts are really different—some of us are healers, some are teachers, and some encouragers. Some of us are leaders, while some of us serve quietly in the background with as little notice as possible, thank you very much. Others bring infectious joy to a group, while others have deep wells of compassion and mercy.
Can you imagine how boring it would be if every single one of us were the same? If each of us looked the same, spoke the same, and brought the same gifts to the world? How monotonous! How tedious!
Yet sometimes we human beings act like all we want is conformity. We want all our students to act the same way in the classroom and our political leaders to be the same. We think sometimes that there is one standard for beauty instead of celebrating what makes us different.
What makes us different also makes us special. It’s also something God designed on purpose. He likes those quirks, those oddities, those differences. He likes the things about us we sometimes try to conceal, thinking they’re so strange and different. Those are the things he likes best, perhaps.
Why does it take us so long to recognize this? Some of us go to lengths to tuck away and hide the seemingly strange or unique aspects of our personalities or skills or looks instead of simply owning and celebrating them. I speak from experience—I spent a long time molding myself into what I was certain would be “socially acceptable” and “pleasing”, only to finally realize what I liked best about myself were the things that made me different, for they were what helped make me, well. Me. And guess what? Others liked the real me, too, when she finally came out of hiding. Maybe not everyone did, but by then I wasn’t too worried about pleasing everyone else, only about pleasing God.
Sometimes we think there’s one standard of a successful or blessed life, too—someone happily married with children and eventually grandchildren, living their best life with money in the bank and a neat home and investments and a career at a job we’ve worked at all our lives. Yet that doesn’t have anything to do with success. Just like our gifts and our looks, our blessings look quite different, too, and yet all are good!
Today, remember this: God loves you, quirks and all. He loves the real you—makeup free and just waking up in the morning. You are precious to Him because He made you, and you belong to Him.
Consider the words of Psalm 139:1-6 (NIV): “You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.”
And because You (God) love me, because You loved creation in the first place, I, too, can share love with others in your name. Amen, and thanks be to God.
Let’s Pray: Lord, thank You for your great love for the world and for me. Help me to appreciate the quirks and oddities about myself, knowing that You created these differences intentionally and with love and care. Please help me to appreciate the differences of others all around me. All of us were created by You, and You are only and always good. In your holy and precious name I pray, Amen.
Song of Reflection: “Many Gifts, One Spirit” by Allen Pote. Listen to it here.
~*~
Author Bio:
Jessica Brodie is an award-winning journalist, author, blogger, editor, writing coach, and devotional writer with thousands of articles to her name.
Since 2010, she has served as the editor of the South Carolina United Methodist Advocate, the oldest newspaper in Methodism, which has won 123 journalism awards during her tenure. Her latest book is Preparing Our Hearts: An Advent Devotional to Draw Closer to God at Christmas.
Jessica has won more than 100 writing awards. She is a seasoned speaker and frequent contributor to Christianity.com, BibleStudyTools.com, and Crosswalk.com, among many others. She has a weekly faith blog at JessicaBrodie.com and is part of the team at Wholly Loved Ministries, with her work included in many of their devotionals and Bible studies.
She’s also produced a free eBook, A God-Centered Life: 10 Faith-Based Practices When You’re Feeling Anxious, Grumpy, or Stressed.
Brodie holds a Master of Arts in English, and she graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in communications/print journalism from Florida International University. Born and raised in Miami, Brodie now lives in Lexington, South Carolina, just outside Columbia. She has also lived in Ohio and in the mountains of western North Carolina. She and her husband, Matt Brodie, have a blended family of four teenage children and stepchildren.
Brodie has written several novels and is actively seeking publication through her agent Bob Hostetler of The Steve Laube Agency. Her novel The Memory Garden won the 2018 Genesis contest for Contemporary Fiction from American Christian Fiction Writers, and her novel Tangled Roots won a third place Foundation Award in Contemporary Romance at the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference in 2019. She is finishing the third in the series, Hidden Seeds, now.
~*~
Connect with Jessica:
Website: https://www.jessicabrodie.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorjessicajbrodie/
Twitter: https://x.com/JessicaJBrodie
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/jessicajbrodie
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessicajbrodie/
Podcast: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/jessica-brodie
Download her free e-book:
https://www.jessicabrodie.com/ebook-god-centered
