Embracing the Beautiful Anomaly That Is You

There's something about the word "anomaly" that stings when it first hits your ears. When my sister Shardae and my therapist both started using this word to describe me, I felt that sting.

Anomaly: something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected. 

But here's the thing about anomalies...they aren't just statistical outliers. They're often the catalysts for change, the bearers of new perspective, the ones who make people question what "normal" even means.

What Makes an Anomaly?

An anomaly disrupts patterns. It challenges expectations. It forces reconsideration.

As a Black woman, I exist in a world that has predetermined narratives about who I should be, how I should speak, what I should want. The script was written long before I was born.

As a Christian, I walk a path where faith is often twisted into something unrecognizable, used as a weapon rather than the healing balm it was meant to be.

As a former foster child, I've seen the underbelly of family structures, the fragility of what many take for granted, and the resilience that can grow in the most unlikely places.

But here's what I've come to understand: The very qualities that make me an anomaly aren't flaws, they're features. Divine design elements.

I realized at a young age that I was different. My life wasn't following the expected script. The path stretched before me looked nothing like the ones my peers were traveling.

And that standard, that impossible, exhausting, beautiful standard that God set for me, it isn't normal.

I don't say that to brag. Honestly, it's draining. It's a thorn in my side sometimes. It's flat-out annoying.

He gave me this big heart, and most of my life, people have walked all over it. They've taken what they needed and left without a second thought. They've mistaken kindness for weakness, forgiveness for forgetfulness, and love for naivety.

Yet deep down, I have to believe that God created me to have this heart, to respond the way I respond, to treat people the way I do. Even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts.

The Black Woman Anomaly

To be a Black woman is already to be viewed as an anomaly in many spaces. To be a Black woman who refuses to shrink herself, who speaks with the confidence of someone who knows her worth is God-given, who extends grace even when it isn't returned, that's revolutionary.

I've sat in boardrooms where my ideas were ignored until someone else repeated them. I've been told I'm "so articulate" with that hint of surprise that makes my skin crawl. I've been expected to perform anger, to confirm stereotypes, to play small.

Instead, I choose to be the anomaly. The Black woman who leads with love but doesn't tolerate disrespect. Who speaks truth but wraps it in grace. Who understands that her very existence in certain spaces challenges centuries of exclusion.

The Christian Anomaly

Christianity has been weaponized, politicized, and commercialized to the point where sometimes I barely recognize it. But the Jesus I follow, the one who touched the untouchables, who elevated the marginalized, who challenged religious hypocrisy, He was the ultimate anomaly.

Living out authentic faith means being willing to look strange to both the secular world and to religious institutions. It means loving the people others reject. It means forgiving when it makes no logical sense to do so. It means serving even when you're depleted.

And yes, it often means feeling misunderstood by everyone around you.

The Foster Child Anomaly

Statistics tell a grim story about outcomes for foster children. Educational achievement, incarceration rates, homelessness, addiction, the numbers paint a picture of predetermined struggle.

Every day that I walk in purpose, in health, in wholeness, I defy those statistics. Every healthy boundary I set, every relationship I nurture, every goal I achieve, I rewrite the narrative.

But that doesn't erase the wounds or the work. It doesn't erase the hypervigilance that comes from childhood instability. It doesn't erase the abandonment fears that sometimes still wake me at night.

Being an anomaly means carrying both the triumph and the trauma. It means acknowledging how far you've come while honoring the journey it took to get there.

To My Fellow Anomalies, If you find yourself nodding along, feeling seen in these words, this is for you: Your difference is your divine assignment. The very things that make you feel isolated are often the things that God will use to bring healing to others.

Those moments when you feel like nobody gets you? They're preparing you to recognize and connect with others who feel the same way.

That big heart that keeps getting bruised? It's not a design flaw. It's your superpower.

The standards that seem impossibly high? They're creating in you a character that will withstand storms that destroy others.

Yes, it's exhausting to be the one who always takes the high road. It's frustrating to extend grace to people who don't appreciate it. It's painful to love deeply in a world that often loves shallowly.

But what if your anomaly status isn't a burden but a blessing? What if the very things that make you different are exactly what this broken world needs?

I'm learning to embrace being an anomaly. To wear it not as a label that isolates me, but as a calling that connects me to a greater purpose.

Some days, I still wish I could be "normal"..... whatever that means. Some days, I'm tired of forgiving people who don't even think they need forgiveness. Some days, I wonder what it would be like to have a heart that doesn't feel everything so deeply.

But then I remember: Normal doesn't change the world. Normal doesn't heal wounds. Normal doesn't create new possibilities.

Anomalies do that.

So I'll keep being the anomaly in the room. The one who believes in redemption when everyone else has given up. The one who speaks life when death seems more logical. The one who loves extravagantly because that's how I've been loved by God.

And to you, my fellow anomaly, I say: Don't dim your light to make others comfortable. Don't shrink your heart to avoid pain. Don't lower your standards to fit in.

The world doesn't need more normal. It needs more anomalies, beautiful, complex, world-changing anomalies just like you.

Your difference isn't just statistical. It's sacred.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​