Do you ever feel different from those around you? Maybe your physical appearance looks different, or you are a woman living in an all-male-home (like me!), or your work/school/income situation is different from your friends, etc. Whatever it is, do you ever feel like there is something that makes you special, unique, or …. an oddball?
I asked this question yesterday on Facebook and was amazed at the response!
I have felt like an oddball in so many ways. I am the only female in an all-male household. I was one of the only women in our church that was not a stay-at-home, home-schooling mom. I have worked as a software developer for many years. This occupation is a male-dominated one, and in school I had several classes where I was the only female. I have imperfections outwardly that appear to not affect others around me.
That’s the hidden message behind being an oddball ….. You’re different.
… something is wrong with you.
… you don’t fit in.
… you are alone.
The most heart-breaking thing for me is seeing children and teens face being different and coming to the conclusion that they are worthless. Our children are often bullied with the idea that being different is being a failure. I will just be honest right now and say that even within the Christian community, being different (in that I have a full-time job) has often left me feeling like a complete failure.
When the next generation looks into the mirror and sees an oddball, we have a responsibility. We must change the message that they understand when they hear the term “oddball’.
This is the message we must share with our children: Oddball does not mean failure. Oddball does not mean “less than”, or “not enough”, or “weird”, or “ugly”, or “strange”, or “unloved”, or “alone”.
Oddball means uniquely designed for God’s purpose.
What if I told you that God has a specific purpose for uniqueness? I don’t mean just to pat someone on the back and send a warm-fuzzy feeling. I mean deep-down, could we believe together that God has created each of us in some type of “oddball” way for a reason?
I have been studying the Bible and learning that God often calls on the oddballs! Reading the Bible, I get to see his plan with the ending for each person who has lived before me. However, I don’t see my life’s big picture. I don’t get to see how He fits the oddball-ness of my life in with His big plan. I just have to trust Him. 
Being different gives each of us a unique perspective.
Being different gives each of us unique strengths.
Being different gives each of us unique weaknesses…. which God can use to display His strength!
Instead of becoming bitter and depressed over being an oddball, I challenge each of us (myself included!) to offer our lives to God. Offer those things that make you feel different. Submit your scars, crooked teeth, broken marriage, skin problems, weight problems, income shortages, work situation, pregnancy, infertility, or whatever it is that makes you unique. Give it to God as an offering. I have been discouraged over imperfections in my appearance, and the other night for the first time in my life, I just prayed that God would show me why I still struggle with it. I prayed that God would give me wisdom, understanding, and discernment to know how best to give him my scars as an offering.
… because it makes me feel like an oddball. But the lies are being replaced with truth, and this post is just a part of what God is teaching my heart…
You know, being an oddball after submitting this struggle to God, actually feels now like freedom. It feels like God has taken Satan’s lies of discouragement and distraction and has exposed them to the light of His truth that He makes all things new.
Could you trust God today to give you a new story for your unique struggles? To believe His truth and replace the lies?
Could we offer together our “oddballness” in order to encourage our children to embrace each aspect of their lives that makes them different?
Could we trust God together that He has a purpose for each of us and that all things work together for good to those who love Him?
Thank you, Melanie! This came at a perfect time for me…
WELL SAID. This is something I have always struggled with – and it’s rearing its head in new ways now that I’m newly married. The insecurity of being an oddball is one thing when you have to deal with it on your own. Dealing with it in someone else’s presence brings a whole new level of feeling!!! So thankful for a patient, understanding husband who challenges me to be more than I think I can be…but so wishing Satan didn’t throw this in my face so much!
I often feel like an oddball as the only childless 41 year old I know. I’ve been married for 21 years, but kids just weren’t part of God’s plan. It leaves me with nothing to share when everyone around me is talking about their kids, swapping war stories. I enjoy their stories, but sometimes it does make me feel very isolated. But it is okay. God has a plan for me, a way to use me for his glory. I have faith in that.
I get the same feeling (even after being widowed for 7 years) when other ladies speak of their husbands. I was thrown way out of kilter that first year when I heard a Valentine commercial! Back to you, I’ve a best friend who’s childless also. People have been thoughtless at times around her, and I see the pain in her eyes. But rest assured, God does love you just the way you are. As for the thoughtless, maybe a prayer said for them to be more considerate would help you and them.
Thank you for the wonderful message! I too am a working mom. My husband is a stay-at-home dad. I think that he struggles much more than I about not having a societal place, ESPECIALLY in Christian circles. How beautiful that God calls oddballs.
Great perspective, Melanie. Especially in today’s society where we’re supposed to fit into someone’s “mold”, it’s important to remember that He has a plan unique to each us. Thanks for the reminder.
Love all your posts. As a mom who works outside of the home I know the “oddball” feeling. I feel like everyone around me is a stay-at-home mom and it’s hard for them to relate to my experiences as a mom who works outside the home. I love my children so much and treasure every moment with them, but I also love my job and feel fortunate that I’m able to balance both. However this does often make me feel like the odd one.
I’ve always been an oddball. :O) The word “normal” is frowned upon in our house. *LOL* We are not meant to be the same. If that was God’s idea, the Old Testament could have ended after Gen 11:9 (Tower of Babel) and skipped to the Gospel of Matthew! (But then, we would have missed the many inspiring stories: Noah, Moses, Ruth, Esther.) Noah was an oddball…he build the Ark when everyone around him thought it (and he) was crazy. Moses was an oddball; a male Hebrew child who should have been killed at birth, growing up to become a Prince of Egypt? Ruth – how many daughters-in-law would hang around to look after their dead husband’s mother after he died? That’s odd. Esther – very, very few women have been odd enough to put her own life in imminent danger to save a nation.
Romans 8:31 states, “What shall we then say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”
II Corinthians 12:9 – ” But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”
God works miracles through all of us “oddballs”!
Being different came up during a Bible study… and this scripture was pointed out “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; ” 1 Peter 2:9 here are just a few of the points that were brought out.
chosen – one who is the object of choice or of divine favor : an elect person (Hand picked by God!! – AWESOME!!!
royal -of kingly ancestry -( I am a Child of the MOST HIGH KING!!)
peculiar – different from the usual or normal: special, particular, odd, curious (SO its great to be an oddball!!! we are called to be different ODDBALLS ARE US!!!! SO happy to NOT belong in this world!!)
Piper, this is great! Thank you so much for sharing this. I have often sung the song that goes with 1 Peter 2:9. Do you know it? There is another one, too: “I’m peculiar,and gettin’ more peculiar; walking ’round talking prosperity, living in health with my spirit free. I’m peculiar and gettin’ more peculiar; and when society doesn’t agree, that’s a good indication to me. Though we’re in it, we’re not of this world, the things I say the world thinks absurd. No way natural thinking can agree, peculiar are the ways of God’s new breed. I’m peculiar and gettn’ more peculiar…..
Fun!
God bless you!
Hi! I don’t like the use of the word oddball. I call myself unique. I am me – one of a kind. My mom taught me to be myself, that following the crowd is not necessary. I learned my lesson one day in 5th grade (a long long time ago): in my 4th grade class i was the girl in my class best at math. fast forward to 5th grade – we were working in groups doing math, I got one answer and the other 3 kids i was working with all had the same different answer. I get called to the board to do this very problem – i go to the board and just write down their answer – yep – it was wrong – my answer was right all along. Lesson learned.
Today, where I work, I am the only full-time female. I like it.
I like being different. I embrace it.
I have never been called an oddball to my face, but friends and others have let me know that I’m different. But, for the most part of my life, I’ve been glad that I don’t follow the pack. I know that there are plenty of well-known people who fit the oddball category. Perhaps having a book read about these kind of people would help children. I remember reading a book to my first graders entitled Leo the Late Bloomer.”
Melanie, as a buck-tooth, skinny kid with red hair I was sometimes called Woody Woodpecker, Bony Moroney…definitely an oddball. After braces, McDonald’s and my hair toning down, I was still an oddball, but I grew to embrace my differentness. But being able to identify with those feelings really helped as I worked with teens. God never wastes an experience.
Great post!
YAY! Well said! Oddballs unite! and let the younger generation of oddballs coming up that they are fantastic!
He seems to use the most unusual for His glory; the least likely for His plan… I like that and I love His grace. I’m not perfect but I yield to the master potter who knows best and I embrace uniqueness. I listen for His voice to do His will, you know… set apart. Nice graphics.
Melanie, I saw that post on Facebook but didn’t have time to respond. I love where you went with the question and praise God for speaking to my heart through your words tonight. Thank you!
I love it! It’s so much better to see yourself as ‘unique’, especially in God’s eyes, as opposed to being an oddball
Amen and pass it on!
Hi Melanie; I’ve always taken GREAT pride in being different and would much rather be an “oddball” than just “one of the crowd”. For years, I was the lone female department manager in a male-dominated industry and the few women that were there didn’t like me at all, because they were support workers and probably jealous. Got along great with the men, though. Now, I am self-employed and just doing my own thing. Fitting in was never something I aspired to. Embrace your uniqueness and revel in it!
I love the pictures used as examples! The picture of the fish especially cute. The other day at church we had a guest speaker who gave this example…dead fish will float down stream only live fish can swim upstream. We are created to gain strength in our obstacles and we are each created differently. As Christians, many in the world view us as “different” or “Oddballs”. I love it, that is the way God made us, we can walk boldly because he made up special and unique! Be blessed
Wow! This is so good!
I was born with eczema, and am now 56 years of age. I have almost always felt alone with it. I have been through the teasing, making fun of it myself, and more. A few years back I “came across” the National Eczema Association and their publication and more. I am not alone! I am not an oddball in that area. I don’t see many other folks with it, but that’s okay. Praise God! I am still different in that I struggle with it and it can be unsightly at times. There are other ways I feel oddballish, but I appreciate your putting it in proper perspective: unique is a good term. God knows what He wants to do with me and with the “oddball” type things about me. He knows my frame and desires me and to use my life. Praise Him! Sometimes it is hard to remind myself that I am not alone – in parenting issues, relationship issues, and so much more; but with the grace of God I can move forward in Him – all that He is to and for me. He is so very good!
God bless you, Melanie, and all your readers.
Oh yes, I constantly feel like an oddball. As a computer engineer, I was one of the few women engineers in my division when I worked. Now as a stay-at-home mom, the things that made me a good engineer mean that I don’t fit in with the other moms. I’m sad to say that I have grown to really dislike women’s ministries because it’s not for people like me. So I try to adapt to whatever group I’m with without losing myself.
Thank you so much for this post. I can’t say that I have felt like an oddball all of my life as I always felt at home at school, college, teaching and then working at a college. However, since leaving the educational scene behind ten years ago I have never felt like I fit in anywhere. I am also only one of a few work outside of the house moms at my church. Add to that a philosophical, theological type mind and I just don’t relate to most women. However, God has continued to show me to not worry about me and fitting it. It gets depressing at times to feel like an outsider, however God has convicted me of this self centered thinking. My eyes should always be on him and then on showing love and grace to others. Not self centered or boasting nor insecure and self loathing but self forgetful. When we take the step to be so in love with Jesus and his people we tend to just forget about ourselves. How much more joy I have found in being self forgetful. I’m no longer worried about how I feel and whether or not I fit in but am so filled with His love for me and acceptance of me that it has become easier to just try and meet others needs. Funny how taking our eyes off ourselves actually ends up filling us up and making us more sure of ourselves. Thanks again for your words of encouragement.
This is such a great post! I have always felt like an odd ball growing up. And God’s used that to bring me closer to him.
Thank you, girl! This puts that outsider mentality into some perspective. I appreciate that God made me maybe unique-er than others for His reason. I certainly struggle with it. I don’t think I battle with God, but with other people, and myself. He knows, and comforts. He understands. Thank you for the encouragement and comraderie. xo
I love this! I think it is so important for us to embrace the uniqueness that the Father created within each of us!