It’s become really important to me that I have complete freedom to choose how I spend my Saturdays. They’re the one day each week when I don’t have any other “responsibilities” to be anywhere or provide anything but I can commit or not to things just because- without the pressure of any obligation or the fear of taking on any guilt.
So, it’s Saturday and I’ve spent the day at a very leisurely pace (even the dog wasn’t bothered to go downstairs until almost 11 this morning!) drinking tea, reading books, searching through recipes I might want to try for a Thanksgiving dinner I’ll be going to next Sunday, listening to podcasts, writing, praying and cleaning out some cupboards and boxes. I’ve also learned that I feel so relaxed and un-stressed is when I do not have demands on my time but am free to keep reading, continue listening to another episode and unpack boxes and cupboards as slowly as I need to…
As I was working through a shelf that holds sheet protector binders full of teaching curriculum from when I taught with the internship at my church a few years ago I also discovered some unopened markers that I will bring to Carrying Companions on Monday, some round bump dots that I have been hoping to find for a-g-e-s so I immediately put two of them on my very non-tactile microwave button panel and I also found a few Christmas cards…
How very unexpected that was. During the past 12 Christmas seasons I’ve only spent 2 in the states and Christmas cards are not a common part of the holiday here so I’d kind of forgotten about how beautiful they can be…
These ones I found today filled me with peace at the sight of their blue and silver sparkles. Immediately after that there was this huge wave of pain, nostalgia… a missing, a longing for something…
I sat down and thought with the Lord, “I know I’ve chosen to obey and that where I live Christmas cards don’t mean the same thing they used to mean in my life… but, why the sudden sadness?”
I knew right away what I would do if I had more Christmas cards! I would have put them on display on a wall in my living room. In the rough shape of a Christmas tree. I remember that my grandma would do that in her one bedroom apartment when she was alive. She had so many cards from so many years in the past! I loved looking at them again and again each year; rereading the handwritten words of hope and love from her friends and family through the years. And, we began to do it at our house, too… before things got bad.
You know how the history of the world is sectioned into 2 distinct times, BC and AD? There’s definitely a divider stuck in the history of my childhood and when things began to get bad holiday traditions were one of the most noticeable casualties. Even when I was still a kid, the loss of those things couldn’t be hidden or overlooked. They left gaping holes in my heart, screamed confusion into my understanding of family and stole parts of my story that I had hoped would be the history I could share and pass on about my life…
Yep, today those Christmas cards poked at a place in my heart that I hadn’t realized still needs healing. The thing about realizing as an adult that we need healing is that it’s harder to try to avoid the pain, unlike when we’re kids and ignoring the pain is often the road to surviving.
As a kid I experienced pain, disappointment, doubt, fear and all in massive amounts that would have surely drowned me if I’d tried to find healing because I didn’t know the Healer of broken hearts back then; the One who came to replace our hearts of stone with hearts of flesh….
But now, today, I do know Him. And I’ve had experience in His ways of healing. Even I’m (pleasantly) surprised still though at how quickly I sat with Him today. Pain is scary. Sometimes for me pain from the past is more scary than current pain because I don't know what else in there....
I’ll hang up the cards this year. As a witness for myself of hope. Hope that He will continue restoring what’s been stolen, that He will continue redeeming what’s been confused and that my history- what I have to pass on- has been rewritten for His glory because I’ve chosen to surrender it to Him.
Are there parts of your story that still seem so broken, painful, confused, maybe even things you haven’t thought about for a while because you just believed it was always going to be that way…? I promise, unto us Jesus was born giving us access to God once again… access to the Wonderful Counselor Who knows just when and how to bring even more healing and transformation to our hearts. Don’t feel pressure to make something happen, just go about your day as usual and be ready to ask Him what He wants to show you if you have any unexpected emotions. It could become an opportunity for you to draw closer to Him and receive more of what He has for you this Christmas season.
