It is Christmas morning, and the farmer's grandchildren have come to visit and open gifts and what-not. And the world's brattiest granddaughter gets up to open this huge package. It's beautifully wrapped, bigger than she is, and since we have been watching the story, we know that inside is a gorgeous, hand crafted doll house that her grandfather has constructed himself. Her greedy little eyes open wide as she rips off the paper in one excited effort and -- promptly bursts into tears.
Her complaint? "It's the wrong one! I want the one I saw on television!"
Now, when I say this scene is pure gold, I mean that is one of the most obnoxious five minutes ever produced on film.
But take a minute to think about it.
Don't we all do the exact same thing?
When I walked in my front door the other night after a school banquet, it was past 1:00 a.m., the whole house was snoring softly (ah, the joy of thin walls), and the only thing awake with me was the multicolored glow of the Christmas tree in the corner of my front room. I kicked off my heals and removed the pins that were keeping my short curls in a form slightly better than their usual state of disarray. And there I sat and watched the lights reflect off the packages beneath the green limbs and thought, yet again, of this scene.
Wrapped in the afghan and shadows of the cozy room, I wondered, not for the first time, why we all struggle so much with the idea of "the wrong gift." And I'm not just talking about the ones that come in wrapping paper and red bows. Every moment, interaction, friendship, family, smile, sunset, snowfall, beautiful song, beautiful night, beautiful second -- all of it. It's a gift. Despite how trite that always sounds, it is completely true. This world, this life, and all the good things in it are gifts.
"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."
Yet not all gifts are quite what we asked for.
No, some aren't what we asked for at all.
Right now it is Christmas morning. All the house is still, and the shadows and I watch the tree again. I mentally pick out the boxes wrapped for me. Here's this pair of shoes. There's that charcoal set. This one? I don't know.
No, I guess we never really know until the paper is crumpled on the floor around and the anticipated item is in our hands. Oh, if only we could know. Know the gifts that we will be given. To not wait so long in consuming desire. To look ahead, look up into that timeless hand above and see oh yes, there are friends for me next year, oh, and look, there's love that won't leave me cold, and oh God, are those my kids? Really? They're beautiful!
And no, of course that's not the way it works. So I sit here on the floor by the tree, here in the mortal, finite world of what-ifs and maybes, hoping and poking packages, desperate and filled at inexplicably the same time. And one half of my heart looks at the gifts I've already been given. The "wrong" ones. The ones I cried and schemed and prayed would magically change into something else. The romances that were friendships. The friendships forever that lasted a season. The time I told God I just needed someone to care about whether I lived or died and he showed me a world full of hurting people and said "they need it more." The time I pleaded for peace and was told "I am sufficient for you." The time I pleaded for a sign and was told...nothing... These are the gifts my inner brat opened and screamed, "IT'S THE WRONG ONE!!"
The wrong one. Hmm.
The other half of my heart is filled with -- well I'm not sure we've really reached "joy" yet, but let's just call a deeper sense "okay" than I've known in a very long time. And that half looks back at the wrong gifts and sees: holy shit! I cannot believe I wanted to date that! and how that short friendship was enough to get me through that time and how helping someone else healed my own scars more effectively than all the pity in the world. How the scars I still carry -- reminders of shame and failure -- have drawn me to those who are scarred themselves, and how they keep me from ever convincing myself I can do this alone. How the summer of sleepless nights drove me to my knees. How the long night alone in my room...well...that one I'm still working out.
But that half of my heart also looks forward at the doubts, still covered packages, and the gifts recently unwrapped and wonders "why these now?"
Why no love, God? I'm a romantic, but still no love. Why no security, God? You know where I want to go next year, but still no word from them. Why no peace at home, God? Why did you take them away, God? Why do You feel so far sometimes?
But these are the wrong questions.
For nothing from Him is ever "the wrong one."
Amid the crunched up balls of wrapping paper and mangled bows around me, there lies friendship, with all its good times and laughter, and there lies trust, heavy but warm to wrap around my shoulders, and there lies family, a gift I often forget to love, and there lies two new mentors that understand me so well, and there is God, with me where He always is, constant and immovable. And he says, "Merry Christmas" and "I love you" and "I know what I'm doing; these gifts are what you need." And I leave the two halves of my heart to fight it out on their own and run curl up in His arms and watch the flickering lights gleam off the colored ornaments hung from every green branch.
And so we bring in the best Christmas yet, just Him, the shadows, and me.
And five-year-old me won't understand all this yet, but I hope that you do.
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