I’ve heard it said that missionaries can never go home. Sometimes, this is because their lives are split between the world they now live in and the world they left behind to be there, and “home” becomes difficult to define. Other times though, and perhaps more commonly, it’s because their experiences changed them and home no longer feels the same.
A missionary named Karl Dahlfred explained this well in an article he wrote: “On the mission field, you said things like, ‘Back in my country….’ but few local people in your host country could relate to your story. They listened politely but you knew they didn’t really understand. But that’s okay. You comfort yourself with the thought, ‘People back home would understand me.’” Except then they don’t. Missionaries come home having been changed by experiences that it seems nobody can understand, no matter how hard they try to explain them or how badly others want to understand. It isn’t anybody’s fault; it’s just that there are some experiences you can’t fully understand unless you were there to live them yourself. Like many other people who come home from the World Race, I definitely felt this way. Life moves on when you’re away for a whole year. While we were gone, God taught us things that changed what our hearts beat for. We had moments that suddenly put life into perspective and altered what we find important. Simply put, we learned to live differently… and while this seemed so normal and exciting when everyone around us was living the same way, it felt unexplainably different when we all separated and went home. It suddenly felt like we no longer fit in. I felt out of place in family dynamics, in friendships, and in the American way of life as a whole. And while I wasn’t good at showing it, it was a hard transition. To some extent, I believe this is a huge blessing… because how much did an experience really change you if you come back a year later and everything is exactly the same? I believe in being different, in not conforming in a culture that preaches conformity. But there comes a point where it’s hard to feel like a misfit, no matter how much you believe in originality… because people are wired with a desire to belong. We didn’t seem to fit in the places we visited abroad, and we naturally expected that. But now we certainly didn’t seem to fit back home, and this came as a surprise and set me up for this revelation that is rocking my world in the best possible way.
What if we’re not actually misfits? Maybe we fit exactly as we’re supposed to and it just feels like we don’t because we aren’t the same as the other pieces of the puzzle.
Imagine a puzzle like this one.
Each piece of this puzzle fills a space, just as each person fills a space in the world they live in. While no two people are exactly the same, sometimes it seems like everyone is. This is shown by all the white pieces that look the same. It’s a natural thing because there is a cultural standard of what is common and many people’s lives align with that standard. Every now and then, there’s a piece that is slightly different… like the blue diagonal piece or the yellow rectangular ones. These don’t seem too terribly different though, and some even have others who differ from the norm in the same way they do. But then there is this black piece that looks drastically different than all the other pieces. If this piece were to look at the whole puzzle and conclude that every space meant to be filled was a square, it would feel like a misfit… a piece that was simply so different that it didn’t belong in the puzzle. But for this puzzle, and for the world, this isn’t reality. If you look closely, you’ll notice that each of these differently-shaped pieces fills a differently-shaped space. The yellow pieces fill spaces that aren’t square but rectangular, the blue piece fills a diagonal space, and even the black piece fills a space that was designed specifically for that piece. The “misfit” pieces actually fit perfectly and fill their spaces in a way that the “normal” square pieces could not.
Why do we, as people, believe that every piece needs to be the same? Why are we trying to fit roles that maybe we weren’t designed to fill?
I often feel like a misfit in the world around me, but I’ve realized that I’m not. I fit perfectly into the space I’m meant to fill… it just sometimes seems like I don’t because my piece is different than many of the pieces around me. And I’ve been learning to not only be okay with this but to love it with all that I am.
Perhaps this revelation is for you too. The idea of being a misfit isn’t just for missionaries, or only for World Racers, or only for me. So many people, at one point or another and for one reason or another, feel like they don’t belong. They feel like they don’t fit in whatever the space is they think they’re meant to fill. But we must remember that we didn’t create the puzzle. The people who tell us what our piece is supposed to look like didn’t create the puzzle either. God created it, and He’s an artist who deserves our fullest confidence. He doesn’t mess up, so if He created your space to look a little different, I promise it wasn’t a mistake. He wants you to fill it in a way that nobody else can. Perhaps you’re meant to fill a different role than all the people around you… you aren’t a misfit; you simply fit differently, and this is a beautiful thing.
Daring to fit differently isn’t always comfortable or easy though. When you live this way, people may challenge you, they may not understand you, and they may even call you a misfit… but dare anyways! Because when you do, people notice; and when they notice, you get to tell them a glorious story they wouldn’t otherwise have the chance to hear.
So when you feel like you don’t fit in, embrace it! Embrace the beauty, the authenticity, and the adventure of it all; embrace the glory of being a misfit… And then transfer all that glory onto God, because He designed the most magnificent puzzle ever created and has allowed you to be a beautiful part of it.
