Getting Used to the Weirdness Factor

If you stay at home with your kids, you may have heard it. If you work at home, you may have heard it. Certainly if you school at home, you have heard it. Maybe not in so many words. However, there has probably been a conversation sometime, somewhere in which you were viewed as….well….not normal. Which, means the same thing as weird.

As a natural people pleaser, this used to bother me a bit. I want everyone to like me, and I would rather just fit in without drawing attention. But there was the call to become a Christian, then the call to get married before I established a real career.

Then, I had more than the 1.3 children (or whatever the current statistic is). By that time, I had gotten over being weird enough to go ahead and stay home with my four whole children and have the audacity to teach them myself.

Here are a few things that console me as I get used to being one of the weird ones:

1. I am only trying to please One.

If I try to please everyone in the world, I will not be able to keep up. Everyone has a different opinion about what my family should look like. However, God has called my husband and me to this lifestyle. To fail to please Him would be a serious mistake and a miserable one at that.

2. The normal lifestyle leaves a lot to be desired.

As financial guru Dave Ramsey says, “Normal is broke!” If there is such a thing as normal, it probably means the same as average. And who wants to be average? Not that I homeschool or work from home just to be different. However, living the called lifestyle….the different lifestyle….means we also live a different kind of life with different results. And I’m just fine with that.

Your weird may look different than mine. But in some way, if you are following God’s plan for your life, you will be considered weird and different. May I encourage you to embrace that?

3. I’m having the time of my life.

Is every day wonderful and rosy? Of course not. But the truth is that no one has a wonderful life every day. It is not realistic. Blue Mondays happen no matter where you work and whether you homeschool or not. Sickness and bad weather occur whether you are on the Forbes 400 list or poverty- stricken.

However, the semi-flexible lifestyle we lead is just plain fun. We can determine our own schedule and curriculum and vacation time and…..well, you get the idea. Are there some trade-offs? Yes. But being in the center of the will of God is a very satisfying way to live.