decorated on the bottom?”
I smiled as my dad said this; he sat next to me Sunday morning at
Kensington’s Christmas service and I knew that there was so much meaning
in that one little question. I could almost see the memories flooding
his eyes…and more importantly the love.
I knew exactly what Christmas
trees he was talking about: the ones that we decorated as a family
every year after my mom died.
There is little that I remember from childhood that doesn’t revolve
around the pain that my family felt from losing my mom to cancer when I
was five years old. My oldest brother was fifteen at the time and my
dad was suddenly a single parent to six young kids. Most of my memories
are of me growing up too fast. But I remember those Christmas trees.
They are a symbol of the one season in my
life as a child when I was still able to grasp a small bit of childhood
innocence and they are a symbol of some of my first experiences with
real love.
I don’t know how my family decorated our trees before my mom died, but
afterwards I remember this: Every year we would pick out a tree
together, we would bring it home, and my dad would string the lights on
it as we watched happily. Then in that moment, he would stop and just
sit back and watch. He would sit proudly and watch with a father’s love
as his six kids-surrounded by boxes of ornaments-would do their part to
empty them onto the tree. Most of our ornaments were handmade or held
some special memory and most of these ornaments ended up on the bottom
two feet of the tree. We would hang the ornaments as high as we could
reach but the tree usually stood two to three times our size and most of
it remained bare. When the ornaments were hung, my dad would finish
everything off by placing the angel on top and by the end we would have
our tree: decorations top and bottom and bare in the middle. It was
truly a sorry looking sort of thing if you were to look at it by the
world’s standards. But my dad never looked at it that way. He saw it
through the lenses of the love by which it was made. To him it was
beautiful. The tree was empty in the middle-our family was anything but.
We were filled. Filled with the love of Christ and the meaning of
Christmas.
My childhood Christmas trees have taught me a lot about the way God
loves me. As a follower of Christ I decorate my tree, I carry myself, a
little differently; I try to approach life with a child’s heart and
innocence and I try to show love in the way that Jesus Christ taught me.
I do not strive for perfection by the world’s standards, but I try to
live by God’s standards instead. I put the ornaments where I can reach
them and I understand that I need not worry about the bare spots. By
the world’s standards I truly am a sorry looking sort of thing.
The world may not always
see the beauty
in those bare spots, but a father always does. I realize that I am still
being watched with a Father’s love and I always will be. Not only am I
being watched by a Father who loves me, but I have been saved by Him as
well. Despite all the ways that I fall short of perfection, despite my
sins and flaws, I am loved by a God who died for my sins and now
watches over me with love.
I will always try to reach those high places-i know that I will fall short-but when God sees
me loving with all that I have, He does not expect perfection. He knows
that there will always be spots that I can’t reach, things that can’t be
done by my own doing and he loves me anyway and watches over me proudly.
Those empty places aren’t bare at all: they are simply the places that
we need God’s help in order to fill. God will always fill the
empty places.
I pray that we all allow God to fill our empty places. There is nothing
that we can do to earn our Father’s love, but He gives it to us freely.
I hope that everyone has a safe and Merry Christmas this year and hope
that you are all blessed with the true beauty and love in trees…only
decorated on the bottom
