Is It Normal To Be Weird?

Last night my sister and I decided to watch The Sound of Music. My younger brother, Liam, was in the room where we were watching the movie too but he tends to go on Facebook and Snap Chat rather than pay attention to the TV screen. As we all know The Sound of Music has some great musical numbers in it, obviously! I'm talking classics like 'Do Re Mi' and 'Edelweiss'. Now I tend to be a bit of a dramatic person so as these songs came on I would sing along way too enthusiastically and add silly hand motions for fun. So Liam, with his phone always on the ready, decided to video me doing this... and Snap Chat it to his friends... I decided to just embrace it and add craziness for the sake of it. As we were doing this I stopped and said to my brother, "Liam, why do you want your friends to think I'm a retard?" I didn't mind that they saw me being overly dramatic, singing in a high-pitched-old-woman-voice, "How do you solve a problem like Mariiiiiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, hooooww do you hold a moooooonbeam in youurrrrrrrr haaaaaaaaaaannnnd!" I was just confused as to why he would let his friends know he had a sister this crazy! It was Liam's reply to my question that really got me thinking. His answer to why he would want his friends thinking I'm a retard was this:

"So they know I'm not the only one." 

People want to fit in. They want to be accepted by others around them. We used to always say, "I'm normal, aren't I?!" But I think there's actually more of a push these days to be happy with your weirdness. To just be yourself, because no one does that better than you. I think this is good. God created us each as individual, unique beings, all reflecting His beauty and Glory. There was something that really struck me in the short conversation I had with Liam last night. It wasn't that he wanted to be seen as 'normal' and he wasn't pretending that I'M normal, but his answer showed that although he knew he was different he didn't want to be the ONLY different one. 

What about you? Where does your heart and mind lie when you come to think of yourself? Would you worry what other people might think if they saw you singing along to The Sound of Music? Would you care if people knew what books you like to read or the bands you like to listen to? Maybe it's more a matter of image for you. Does this outfit look cool, am I fitting the trends, should I dye my hair a different colour?... All questions that reflect us caring about other people's opinions. I guess it's okay for us to mind what other people think of us, if it's coming from a place of wanting them to respect who we are. Like I care that you see me as a God girl, because my faith shapes who I am and whether you share that faith or not I want you to know that I'm living for Jesus. So maybe the problem isn't in caring about how others see us. Maybe the problem is that we let that change how we see ourselves.