I started a new job this week, and I absolutely LOVE it! I'm meeting new people, learning new things, and remembering why I always loved working in health care. On my first day in the office, as my boss took me around for a tour and to meet everyone, I discovered that I knew a lot of the people already and just had NO idea they worked there. I won't lie, it felt good to see them all welcome me with hugs and smiles, and to hear them tell my new boss all the things they love about me. So many conversations this week have led me to just close my eyes for a moment and thank God for his unfathomable goodness as I'm seeing His plans unfold in ways I never imagined. Overall, I am so happy and full of praises and joy this week. I feel like I'm being revived, rejuvenated, and reminded of things I hadn't even realized I'd forgotten. Things like how much I absolutely love to learn new things and how quickly I can learn. Like how much I enjoy people...their random quirks, their individual personalities, their uniqueness and their similarities, their joy for one another...it's infectious, and I love it. Starting my new life chapter this week has been very much an awakening for me, and I didn't even realize I'd been asleep.
Oddly enough, though, this all came at a really strange time. See, I'm what some would call a humbug, although I'm exponentially better than I used to be. Before I had kids, I was much more 'humbuggy' than I am now, although I must admit that I didn't put up a Christmas tree last year (and it doesn't look like I will this year either). So for me, the holidays are one of the WORST times to be around new people - they don't know my story, they don't know why I'm a humbug, and inevitably there are many who are over-the-top, Christmas-loving nuts (that's a term of endearment, btw, not an insult). At least twice this week I've had to explain, in the face of the Christmas cheer that most people find so contagious, that I don't really like holidays so I'm not excited to decorate or party or listen to carols. Of course, then they want to know why, so I have to pull out one of my generic answers about how it's a long story and that I'm really so much better now that I have kids, and then direct the conversation back to the Christmas lovers with a question about why they love it so much. I love hearing their answers, and we all leave the conversation smiling and full of the happiness they share by telling their stories. It's a win-win!
But for those who really do want to know why I don't like holidays, I'll tell you. If you don't like sad stories or started reading in hopes of hearing happy holiday memories, you might want to stop here. I don't mind, I promise. :-)
When I was 7, my life was very different than that of most kids my age. I lived with my dad, step mom, and half-sister in a nice house in the right neighborhood, faithful members of the local Christian church. My step mom played the organ on Sundays, and I'm sure everyone thought we were a sweet little blended family. Most people pitied me because of my mother's death two years earlier, and I'm sure many felt my step mom was a remarkable woman to have married a man with a child who she was now helping him raise. What most people didn't know was that she had absolutely no desire to have me in her life. When my mother died when I was 5, my stepmother was very angry and jealous because my father grieved my mother's death. They had been divorced for a couple of years, but I guess he still took it pretty hard. I was a constant reminder to my step mom that my dad had loved someone before he loved her, so in her eyes, I was the enemy. I spent my days locked in my bedroom or locked outside, playing alone, coloring, reading every book I had many times over, working puzzles repeatedly until I could time myself and challenge myself to get faster and faster. I didn't spend time with the family and was not a part of mealtime, and my 2-y-old sister was punished if she ventured into my room. My stepmother brought me a bowl of cereal every morning, a cheese or peanut butter sandwich for lunch, and another cheese or peanut butter sandwich for dinner. I had a cup under the bathroom sink that I was allowed to use for getting a drink of water and for rinsing my mouth out after brushing my teeth. On the days I had school, I ate like crazy, loving the warm meal and the companionship of the lunch ladies.
That Christmas, I was allowed to go spend some time with my mother's parents, my Grandma and Papa. My cousins were coming, too, and we spent our time playing, eating, and making Christmas goodies. Grandma was an excellent cook and made the most amazing gingerbread houses at Christmastime, so we all loved helping her in the kitchen and getting to assist with the decorating of the houses. We made candy, jelly, and pumpkin bread, and Grandma insisted on packing me a bag of goodies to take home. I knew I wouldn't be allowed to eat them, but she wouldn't accept that, so I got into my dad's car at their house, two days after Christmas, bag in hand. After I buckled up, I told my dad what was in the bag and that I knew I wasn't allowed to have it, but that I hoped he & my step mom and sister would enjoy it. His response was not what I expected, and I will never forget it:
"Well, you can take it with you to your new home tomorrow. You're not going to be living with me anymore."
Forget turning my world upside down - that one little response made it seem that the whole world was spinning into overdrive all around me. He told me that I'd be going to live with friends of theirs from church, and that they were very excited to have me because they'd always wanted children but never been able to have them. And, he said, it would be a good new start for me because they were moving to a town farther away, so I would have a new school and a new life. And who cared about candy or gingerbread houses or pumpkin bread? I was being sent away by the only parent I had left, being discarded like an unwanted couch that someone else needed. If my daddy didn't want me, then how could I guarantee that these new people would want me for very long either? I thought I must be the worst kid in the world.
The next day, my daddy loaded my toy box and clothes into Steve & Anna's vehicle, and I was off. Words can't even begin to describe the pain and confusion I felt. Everything had changed in an instant, and what was supposed to be a happy season had just become completely wrong. I didn't want presents, or a tree, or cookies, or candy...I just wanted my daddy, and it was very clear that he didn't want me. I cried myself to sleep my first night in my new bed, despite Steve & Anna's best efforts to make me feel loved and wanted.
So, friends, if you ever really wanted to know why I'm not a Christmas person, I hope that helps you understand a little. After that Christmas, my life became one big mess, with many more holidays bringing sadness and pain, and only in the past 10 years have I been able to take that mess and allow God to create something beautiful. Now, I've let go of the anger and the pain has dulled, but the holiday season still brings a familiar ache to my heart, and this was what started my humbugs.
Thank you, Lord, for redeeming my mess. Thank you for taking the humbug spirit I carried around for so very long and dulling it, allowing me to derive joy from my kids and others who share their love of holidays. Thank you for giving me friends who hold me accountable when I get too humbuggy, and for friends who know how to comfort me and lift me up so I don't start to forget that my mess is now my message and I don't have to live in the shadow of my past. Thank you, most of all, for sending your son to earth to be born just so that he could die, all to save me from my sins and allow me to feel the richness of your grace. I love you, Lord, and I long to be a witness for you, an example of your healing power. Thank you, God, for my babies and for choosing me to be their mom in spite of my shortcomings. Help me lead them to grow with their roots firmly planted in you, focused on the wonderful plans I know you have for them. You are amazing God, my comforter, my strength, my Prince of Peace, and I praise you always. Amen.
