I’m ugly and awkward and I always say the wrong things. I fly around throwing away perfectly good marriage proposals. I love our home, but I’m just so fitful and I can’t stand being here! I’m sorry, I’m sorry Marmee. There’s just something really wrong with me. I want to change, but I – I can’t. And I just know I’ll never fit in anywhere.                -Jo March

I’ve always felt a kinship with Jo March from Little Women. Many times I’ve said something very similar to the above quote. It comes in waves really, this feeling of not belonging or not fitting in.

Almost everywhere we look there’s a box to try to fit yourself into. There is much pressure to look a certain way. To be a certain type of woman. To not be a certain type of woman.

It’s exhausting, always trying to get it right.

That’s why I’m starting this blog. For all the misfits, outcasts, wanderers, seekers. For those who can’t or just chose not to fit in.

I decided on We, the Misfits for the title when I thought of the Rudolph movie and the island of misfits toys. The Charlie-in-a-box, the spotted elephant, the choo choo train with square wheels, the bird that swims instead of flying, the cowboy who rides an ostrich and the boat that can’t float. That part of the movie always makes me so sad, all these toys that are flawed and so banished to this lonely island. I always want to swoop in and rescue them and give them a loving home.

Do you know what I think? I think that’s how Jesus feels about us. He sees us being banished, most of the time banishing ourselves, to this island. Believing we don’t deserve to be loved. And he so longs to save us from that lonely island and give us a home where we can be secure in the fact that we are loved and accepted wholly as we are.

And he DOES rescue us. He’s there with a boat that has room for all of us.

Won’t you leave that island? Come away with me and never look back. Leave behind all the lies that you’re not beautiful enough, strong enough, capable enough. That you’re too thin, not thin enough, that you’re lazy, that you’re a mess-up and failure. Come with me and let my perfect love wash over and heal your wounds. Beloved, you are mine and no one has the power to say otherwise.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.                     

  John 14:1-6