One December morn, long, long ago, I woke
up. I was young. I was hurting. I was fourteen. Do you remember what it feels
like to be fourteen? You may remember, but what you don't recall is how it felt
for me at age fourteen.
When I was fourteen I wanted to die. On
December 10, 1989, I didn't want to wake up the next December morn. December is
a month most miraculous yet most cruel.
When all the families around me celebrated the
beauty of the holidays, dressing up their homes, dressing up their trees, dressing
up their car trunks with store-wrapped gifts and receipts for things they
surely couldn't afford, dressing up their wardrobes, faces, and fancied feet,
dressing up their appearances... When all the people and things around me were
putting on a show for a Jesus born long, long ago, I didn't get it. I
just didn't get it. I loved the magic, yet it felt so false and empty, so
putting on a show.
Why did all these people put on a show for Someone who knew how they were feeling on the inside? I knew He knew how I was feeling
inside. I was ashamed at all the hurt inside.
Why did all these families pretend that all was
well? Why did all these folks I knew make everything not so wonderful a
magical, glittering tale? Tall, tall tales steeped in sugar plum fairies and avoiding reality. Escape was my answer. Finding a way out was my key.
Yet, I woke up.
My plan didn’t work. I did not escape.
Someone held me. Someone had a better plan.
Life, in many ways, hasn't gotten a lot easier over
the years since 1989, but what has become more real is love. Love sees us
through the magic and the tragic. Love sees us through when we look in the
mirror and love what we see. Love sees us through when we ignore the mirror, when
we ignore the evil inside of you and me. For though things are not so
holly and jolly overall for me this year, keeping up appearances helps the joy
surround. And as it turns out, the only true joy is found in the darkened
caverns of our hearts, a place as far as I know only Love can go.
We can hide out in these caverns. We can lose ourselves within. We can hate and scream in darkness, yet somehow
escape won't do. When we most want to hide somehow we become
crystalized.
Have you ever seen the beauty of light shining on crystals
in a deep and drippy cave? If you haven't, treat yourself to a trip! They are a
sight to see! Howe Caverns (New York) and Crystal Cave
(Pennsylvania)
present some of nature’s perfect wonders!
Do you know how these magnificent crystals form?
I'm no scientist, but I do know part of the process is called
supersaturation. It involves water (essential to life), pressure, change,
and time.
Today, I thought about crystals...
Today, I thought about crystals of water frozen on
grass. Walt Whitman is one of America's
favorite poets and a favorite poet of mine. I saw those frozen blades of grass,
the leaves of grass he once described, and I saw them as extraordinary.
What was an ordinary walk with the family dog became extraordinary. And I
thought more about the crystals.
Diamonds in our midst… Crystals and wonder in the dark places…
Moments of light on crystals of ice... Sunshine in a month of much
darkness… So much to consider this ordinary day...
Water, pressure, change, and time… They make the crystals
strong. They have made me strong as well. Yet, there's a distinct
difference between the light we can as humans create and the light only God
provides.
What I didn't understand then I'm beginning to
understand now. Illumination is a natural process-light to the heart. It too
takes provision of water, from a constant Source. This nourishment under pressure, change, and
time becomes brilliant in His Light.
That fourteen-year-old girl had a lot to learn, but
how could she have known?
What started as tears 22 years ago has been transformed
into crystal, strength grown in darkness, brilliant when you hold it up to Light or allow the Light to shine upon it.
I don't create my own source. I don't create
my own light. I have been safely guarded as I've longed to hide, especially at
this time of year when Christmas and
Love can seem all but a show.
I want the real thing. The real thing here is
only a glimpse of what we as believers in Christ
will experience as reality-Eternity. But when I realize I can tap into
the Christmas Spirit, today, or any
day of the year, come December or come June, I realize jazzing things up a bit
is alright; it's more than okay!
“Put the lights on the tree…”
We need the visual reminders; we need to set the
mood. We need try our best to share the light inside us lest it be forgotten, rotting in a forgotten cave somewhere. Unless we purposely expose
ourselves and let ourselves be touched by the Light, we do indeed have everything to hide.
Today's much less than perfect. Today, I hurt
too. Yet, I have a million blades of grass right around the corner, the
sunshine in the sky, a priceless child to hold, and a million other blessings
besides.
We each have a story, a burden to carry, a secret yearning
or mistake we try to hide. If I was not alive today though… This tale would
remain true. I just wouldn’t be here to tell it. What a shame that would
be…
As a wooden plaque on my desk says, "Every
life is a fairy tale written by God's Fingers." Tapping into the
magic is what makes the "tall tales" real.
Merry Christmastime! No
matter what you feel, BELIEVE. It’s in the
darkest hours of December we so desperately need His strength, His life, His light.
Believe.
It's all Real.
"...but
whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the
water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to
eternal life." ~John 4:14 (NIV)
