Hey all,
Obligatory comment about it being too long since my last post... Blah, blah, blah..
Ok, now that I've done that here's what's on my heart.
As Alisha shared on her Facebook page last night we had a neat memory time last night that happened a bit spontaneously. The best memories always seem to start that way.
Long and short the girls (Ash & Bri) and I were challenged by Alisha to get a flashlight and go to find a Christmas tree. We were told that it didn't matter what we found as it was about the adventure. So we searched in the dark with only the small light of a cell phone as our guide. We did find the tree and with my dull hatchet I began to claim our prize. Ashley then carried our trophy back to the homestead and we celebrated our accomplishment. As we took the tree into the home we discovered that this tree was not "Charlie Brown's" tree, but it was certainly close to the (just barely) big brother of Charlie Brown's tree. So we came up with some creative ways to make this tree bigger and decorated it with trinkets and decorations that were made by Alisha's children over the years. This primarily was because they were the only ornaments that were light enough to be held by the branches, but quickly turned into a sentimental time as the tree began to be decorated.
Simplicity became our theme of the night and I could sense God placing some thoughts on my heart as we had this beautiful evening of Christmas music, a make shift Christmas tree and reminders of what Christmas is all about. Alisha shared that this was the favourite tree that she's ever decorated and again my heart was pricked with some neat truth that God deposited in my heart. I then shared with the girls that, "It's not about the appearance of the tree externally, but the memories that are created around it."
You see we do this and I don't just mean at Christmas time either. We look at the external and come to conclusions that often just aren't true. What we see does not equate to fact all the time. Just like this lil tree that doesn't really look like much, but is representative of a beautiful family night of memories so too there is beauty in people and situations around us that on the outside don't look like much.
This past weekend Alisha and I were blessed to receive a video message from our sponsor child Albertho and his twin brother Jean-Bertho and it absolutely moved us and made our day. If you spend time in the community that these boys live in you would say, "Oh boy. Not much to offer here", but meeting these boys and spending some time in their community has been a very impacting experience in our lives. Another truth is that when you see their circumstances it would be easy to see the boys and feel sad for them, but in this video the boys were so full of love and smiles and I can tell you that this IS their reality. My mind says, "How can this be?" I complain about my "troubles" and these boys are so happy and full of love. I don't know if I'll ever understand this, but all I know is that what I see with my eyes isn't always what the reality is. Instead of sadness for what I see, I am reminded that these boys understand joy in rough circumstances way better than I do.
So, let's look at our lives. Let's explore our circumstances. What do we see? Now look a little deeper. What beauty can be found? If you are a follower of Christ we always have hope in the darkest of circumstance and this takes me back to Christmas. We complicate things with our stuff. Perhaps like my beautiful wife commented last night, beauty is found in simplicity. Jesus came. He died. He rose again for our forgiveness. Lord, help us zoom into this truth this Christmas season when the busyness of hectic schedules, gifts, debt, and foolish attempts to impress others with meaningless pressures we put on ourselves try to distract us.
May we keep it simple and make incredible memories with family celebrating the simple truth of Christmas this year.
