Even in the Woebegone -- Merry Christmas!

Woebegone? Definition:  of woeful appearance; looking sorrowful, mournful or wretched.

What comes to mind at this time of year is Charlie Brown’s little Christmas tree.  Listing to the left, bereft of branches, and, but a single ornament or two. 

Lately that is how I have felt.

 

Listing to the left.

Bereft of branches,

Only a single ornament or two.

2016, a year of surprises, quick turns, not flip flops exactly, but bumper cars without the safety walls.  It’s been the smoothest year of not smooth I’ve ever encountered. I’ve had my share of “open doors of opportunity”, “didn’t see that coming,” or experiences where the only response was, “Uh?!”

For those who read me, you know that mostly I am not alone on this journey – mostly I am with the God of my understanding, God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

But as with any healthy relationship, there is mystery, there is a deepening, and for me, generally, there is a get-down with God about the “Uh’s”?  I know from my relationship with the Lord, that there is ALWAYS something to learn – about myself and about my God and what He is doing.  And in this Christmas season, I have noticed my listlessness and wondered about my lack of wonder.

I have walked with Jesus for 34 years.  And as I have pondered about the ups and downs of this year, I spent time reminiscing about my first Christmas spent as a born-again Christian.  And the true WONDER, awe, and excitement about it! 

Looked pretty woebegone on the outside for sure.  I was separated from my second husband, a single parent, no money, on the verge of losing the roof over my head– do you hear the violins?

For the record, the little drummer boy was my favorite Christmas song. And the poignancy of that song, still resides in my heart today.

Along with the profound remembrance of how precious the birth of Jesus was to my heart and the excitement of wanting to celebrate His birth!

Not able to afford a Christmas tree, I had an idea that I wanted a Jesse tree, which is a little tree with branches bereft of leaves, so that only homemade decorations could adorn it – ornaments truly born of a heart and hands to celebrate the season for which we sing, “Holy, Holy, Holy!”

Walking my two-year old around the block on a cold, windy, day two weeks before Christmas, I had one thing on my mind – GET HOME!

Behind me I heard a loud crack, and the sense something had fallen.  I turned around, and there it was—

My first Christmas tree – a Jesse tree.  I knew.  I saw the gift.

I cried and picked up what was a paltry little set of branches blown from a large tree moaning from the wind.  But it was perfectly proportioned.  I hurried home, stroller, baby, little branches and all.

I am not particularly a crafty person.  Well okay, my friends are reading this.  I can’t craft, period.

Didn’t matter – Bible verses written on parchment, little red ribbons, homemade angels, stick figures fashioned out of a lot of things – it was a beautiful little tree, fashioned out of my love, out of my heart, out of a life filled with woebegone, for the one I loved.

Jesus.

Last week in an ice storm trees split and lay torn all over the city.  I struggled with my motivation to feel the Christmas spirit. Was my heart weary from my  life changing beyond my control, experiences I didn’t and don’t understand, a world around me with people I love, grappling with challenges beyond my ability to fix?

This morning I looked upward, and bowed down.  On my knees.  Words of my condition stuck in my brain too easily wanting to fix it all.

I couldn’t. I can’t.

But, on my knees, I cried out the one thing I knew in my heart.  “Thank you for coming Jesus, thank you!” Woebegone or not, when I arose from my knees, I felt peace.

My prayer?  A whisper of my first Christmas with Jesus, a fanning of the flames of my heart of my portion of faith which was Jesus’ gift to me.

Though I didn't expect answers on that day of prayer, they came.  

It was a Jesse tree type day! 

Ornaments of my feelings of barrenness hung on a life with crooked branches, but in perfect proportion to God’s plan.

 I received exciting news from a good friend about refreshment and empowerment – a “happening” which just that morning exploded out of a prayer group at my church.  Was it their prayers that led me to my knees in the first place?

Later, I hurried to grocery shop before snowflakes turned to a “weather event,” but I stopped, jumped out of my car to hug and say good-bye to my neighbors as they loaded their U-Haul truck to leave a house lost to hard times.  Hugs and tears, they thanked me for loving them.

Then, as I loaded groceries into my car, a crippled homeless man in a worn jacket approached me in a now steady snowfall for “spare change.” My heart broke for him, and for my own inability to give him anything more than a paltry hand-out. I gripped his hands to warm them in mine and said in a faltering voice, “Jesus loves you.”

Another miracle.  We hugged in the now heavy snow fall, and with steady bright eyes, he smiled at me, “He loves me every day.”

 Awestruck, I climbed back into my car aware that this homeless man had given me the greater gift. Heavily falling snow and traffic jams once again took my focus on the burden of daily living!

Finally home, groceries unloaded, and sitting in my “chair” with a cup of hot tea, tree lights twinkling, I felt a stirring in my heart. Suddenly, quietly, but definitively, God was speaking.

  

Instinctively, I bundled up again to walk around my neighborhood in the silent beauty of newly fallen snow, Christmas lights gently welcoming the freshness of a blanket covering fallen branches of only a week ago. 

Just like the Jesse Tree.  I trod in the snow, looking at the houses, for the most part knowing who lived there.  Their joys, their sorrows.  This was not my turf.  It is God’s, and He has placed me here -- to live, to breathe, to commune in victories and sorrows with my neighbors.  To pray for them, and let them be who they are to me.

A peace fell upon my spirit as I walked, once again, understanding that in the woebegone, life is there.  Because of Jesus.

My questions of how to respond, of my angst at not having enough to spread around in this hurt-filled world, and how in my aging body, I can do anything, were suddenly, clearly answered.

I stopped in the beauty of the moment of God’s creation.  Full circle? Is it so simple that in my barrenness, answers, ornaments fall where they may, where God intends?  Is it so simple to surrender to daily life where we live and breathe, and resurrect a naked little tree with our love and ornaments?

I think it is.

Merry Christmas!