I’m a little out of sorts right now. Every day I leave the sunshine, the blooming peony, and the bubbly calls of the wrens to come downstairs to my secluded basement office where I write Christmas stories.

Yes. I’m writing Christmas stories as the temperature outside my tiny window reaches into the 80’s, my Christmas lights currently turned off.

It can be hard, but I have to stay the course even though the world around me is squishing marshmallows between graham crackers and chocolate instead of plopping them into mugs of hot chocolate.

This is the race I’ve been called to run. And even though I feel like a penguin on a hot sandy beach trying to find my way home to cooler waters right now, I keep going.

Maybe you’re feeling out of sorts too like you don’t fit in. Maybe you feel like you’re the only one doing what you’re doing, and you wonder if the world is looking at you like you’re nuts.

Maybe they’ve even asked you why in the world would you want to do the whole “Jesus thing” instead of doing something else, something easier, something more fun? “Doesn’t God make you give up everything, and don’t you get bored?” they might ask.

I’m laughing as I’m sitting in this beautiful room God blessed me with, remembering when I made and wore a ridiculous hat with bells and pipe cleaners to prove to others (and myself at the time) that God is fun. What laughter erupted when I walked into the crowded room and what fun we all had with that silly hat! (You give up everything? God is boring? I think not. But that’s for another post.)

It’s a challenge being the only penguin alone on the beach, isn’t it? But that’s just it—when you’re following God, you’re that much closer to Him.

He’s going to wrap you up in His presence and encourage you like no one else every could, whisper lovely, personal sentiments to your heart, and pick you up if you stumble and fall because you got distracted and started paying attention to everyone else splashing in the water far from shore.

Perhaps God has called you to stay with Him on the shore because He knows you’re easily influenced by others, and He wants to reveal hidden treasures to you:

• Peace when the world is chaotic.
• Faith that makes you smile instead of fear that makes you cringe.
• A closeness with the Holy Spirit.
• God’s will for your life.
• Absolute joy in knowing you’re doing what God created you to do.
• Love like you’ve never imagined.
• Rest when the world pushes you for more.
• Hope in knowing what awaits you when you leave this earth.

It’s okay to not fit in. Really it is. When you don’t fit in with the world and its ways, chances are you’re probably fitting into God’s embrace quite nicely.

And who knows? Maybe you’re going to giggle as you turn on some Christmas lights today, fix yourself a big mug of hot chocolate, and reread one of the Christmas novellas you can’t wait to share with the world.

Or maybe that’s just me.

“We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts.”

1 Thessalonians 2:4b NIV.

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

Romans 12:2 NIV.

“He [Jesus] said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”

Mark 6:31b NIV.