Are You Normal?

From an article titled "Ever Wonder How Normal You Are?" by Father Lou Guntzelman:
"Analyst Dr. Lawrence Jaffe notes that "Patient after patient speaks to me of the frustration in not being able to be 'normal.' What a relief to realize that normality is a statistical concept with no empirical validity ... There is no such thing as being normal. But what a long road it is that leads finally to that realization."
Normality is an abstraction derived from the study of statistics. It doesn't exist in reality.
Science may say the average or "normal" stone in a certain riverbed is 4 inches long and 2 inches wide.
Yet, a search may never find a stone exactly that size in the stream (what a relief to the rest of the stones!)
Stones don't try to conform themselves to some desirable proportion. But humans do. We forget we are unprecedented.
Isaac Singer writes, "Every human character occurs only once in the whole history of human beings."

How often do we compare ourselves to our perceived view of what's "normal" and come up lacking?
I have to admit that I really struggle with this sometimes. I'm not a person with many overt talents that are easy to spot, nor do I have many of the mainstream hobbies or interests of many other women. I look at my body shape every day and moan about the fact that I'm shaped the way I am. I can find a million reasons every day to be down on myself and think that I'm just not "normal" or good enough. But when I turn to God and ask for His help in seeing myself the way He sees me, I start to recognize that some of those less obvious talents are still worthwhile talents, and that some of the interests I have may not be "fun" but they've been beneficial to my family and have been enjoyable for me. I get glimpses of what I can be if I could just let go of what I imagine I should be. I'd love to be able to tell you that I'm totally confident in who I am and that I'm happy being anything but "normal" but the truth is that I often find myself fighting against a flood of feelings of loneliness and discouragement because I don't measure up to what I see all around me.
Isn't it about time we accept who we are and embrace the uniqueness of what makes us anything but "normal"? Each of us has special talents, abilities, characteristics, experiences and flaws that, when put together as a whole, creates a wonderful human being! We don't have to fit into a cookie-cutter mold of what a "normal" or "perfect" person should be (as if they really existed anyways!)
Let's start each day by waking up and realizing that we are the person we are meant to be. If there are improvements we want or need to make to ourselves, let's be realistic and be content with the progress we make, even if it's not by leaps and bounds.
It's time to stop comparing ourselves to others and take an honest inventory of all the good that God has placed within us. God wouldn't be happy to see us comparing our worst with someone else's best, nor would He want us to conform to someone else's way of being just because it's the "cool" or popular thing to do. He wants us to be happy where we are and with who we are. After all, we are His- and God doesn't make junk.