I am Different and maybe weird, but I am still Loved

I don't want to write about "me", but I sure would like to write about the One Who made me, the way I am.
When I went to college, I was surprised at the new world I was going to live in. I had a culture shock, because I come from a town called Jamshedpur in the North East part of India, a sort of mordernised town, and having its own character. So when I moved to Kerala for my college, I wondered how could people possibly live like this!!!...I'll tell you what I saw.
Women weren't that bold, they were supposed to behave shy and quietly. The quieter the better. Oh boy, now that was a culture shock to me, because my parents had always treated me as good as a boy. There was nothing I was not allowed to do, just because I was a girl. My mom always calls me "beta"(pronouced as "bay-taa") meaning my son in Hindi. No wonder I was into sports, into singing and into anything I wanted to do. I had no sisters to play with, my cousins were all boys, and I have 2 younger brothers, so I played cricket, football, and all those rough games. Thanks to my loving mom, she fought to get her college degree and she is still working with Tata Motors, she wanted me to be free to do whatever I wanted to do and become all that I could become.

At college we had a prayer group where I used to go with other christian friends, but I was an extremely extremely outgoing person. I had soooooo many friends, and I was and still am very very talkative. The only difference now being, I don't have many friends around here to talk to...

Anyways, all the girls in the prayer group would sit very gently, and "shyly" and quietly and with their heads down, except to look at the speaker. Well I was the only one looking all over the room, at all the people in the room..and the speaker, of course...I was "different".

I was definitely and distinctly different, and stuck out like a sore thumb. I had short hair, everyone else had atleast 2mtrs of hair. Well I had more like a mushroom cut...so I even "looked" different. In all of this, sometimes I used to get discouraged, because I was different and I didn't want to be. Some thought I was a snob (people think that, if you've got short hair like a foreigner). I wasn't a snob, thats how I was. I tried hard to blend in, and managed to some extent, learnt their local language and few things like being a little more quieter. Till this day I feel left out even when I'm with them, I don't know why.

But you know what the most beautiful thing I realised was, I really was always excited because God was constantly at work in my life and I loved His Presence every moment. I found God was also talkative, just like me. He loves to talk to me and hear me talk to Him. So in the midst of it all, I found my Friend, Who liked me just the way I am, and though I have faltered many a times, I have always found Him standing by my side, like a mother, protecting me when I'm alone, encouraging me when I'm down, loving me when I feel unloved, helping me when I'm helpless, caring for me when no ones there..and above all, talking to me when I need the right Word for my situation. Oh He is so wonderful to me, I wonder what I would have done without Him, my Lord and Love, Jesus. Well,I still don't know how to blend in, but now, I don't want to blend in anymore.