The Snow Globe

It had been several weeks of losing my keys, forgetting appointments, missing opportunities to serve and see people, which led to needless fighting and inconveniencing my husband and children as a result. I always know that familiar warning in my heart, when I start spinning so many plates that my fingers begin to burn.

Yes, the Christmas season is busy. Yes, it can be frantic. But for me, when December hits I can almost see a creepy demon elf throw a brick on the gas pedal of my sanity and snicker as I veer into a ditch. That usually happens around Christmas Eve.

What I’ve come to realize is that as a result of God’s grace, he lets it break. The pace I mean. Breakneck speed is a thing I know of firsthand.

I wish I was a cool as a cucumber. I envy chill moms that seem to glide through their days with the mental presence of a human day-planner. I am especially awed by those people who have a sense of direction like Magellan too. My sense of direction is more like mud. I seriously never know where I am at. I am in a state of constantly being lost. Even on roads I’ve driven my whole life.

This is a problem when combined with my chronic activity addiction and the fact that I am also an artist. And as my husband says, it's a very adorable and yet, inevitably scattered combination. I am this strange blend of intentionality, absent-mindedness and over-achieving. The composition of my character always tempts me to over analyze every millisecond of my emotional climate while forgetting which way is North.

But every few months or so, Jesus pulls the rug out from under me. Not to see me fall or slip, but to remind me that I still need balance to stand upright. Whenever I find myself in a Spirit-sacred space of forced slowing, I reflect on it.

This year, I found the sacred space on the heels of a long string of days where I simply forgot to breathe and pay attention. I also forgot to blow out way too many candles, brush my daughters hair, wipe my child’s nose, put pants on my toddler, eat, drink, or grab my wallet.

It was found when I was beckoned to my hands and knees.

I had bought my mother-in-law a snow globe for Christmas. I had no clue what picture I was going to put inside it. Magically, or miraculously, our church had a photo booth that printed out pictures of our family that was exactly the right size. I couldn't believe my luck. Yet another ball I was about to drop was picked up by the divine hands of a loving God who knows my tendencies.

I got home and quickly began getting the house ready for guests. I had the steam cleaner steaming, the washer filling up with water for clean sheets and I was simultaneously cutting our new picture to fit into the small frame. One of my favorite authors, A.J. Swoboda wrote once that “multitasking is God’s job. We should only singletask.” He was right.

However, I didn't even see it coming. Because as I inserted the perfect picture into the thoughtful gift, I was overcome with how small things like these matter. How God takes care of the details. How I couldn’t wait to see my husband’s mother open the snow globe, since she cared about sentimental gifts like I do.

I had a hush of gratitude fall over me in the clanging chaos of the dirty laundry room. I heard the steamer still choking out steam and I rushed to shove the snow globe into the perfect bag. The only problem was the even though the bag looked perfect, it was a few centimeters too small at the opening. I shoved. And shoved. The fact that the bag was too small by such a tiny margin somehow made me believe I could get it to fit with enough effort.

Such is the way I view infinitesimal degrees of limitation I suppose.

As I held it upside down for one final shove, it slipped from my hands and fell onto our “carpeted” cement basement floor. It exploded. The white snow fell flat into dark pockets of soggy brown carpet. The shards of glass glinted and guffawed at me. I stood there looking. And looking. All I wanted was for the globe to be back in my hands. And for my silly, tendency to rush and force everything to go back into hibernation and leave every moment leading up to this one alone.

The rug was not literally pulled out, but it was definitely wet and littered with tiny, thin shards of glass.

It was done. It was broken.

And I felt it in my gut. The Spirit whisper. This is just a snow globe now. But you must adjust your pace, before something much more valuable gets broken.

As if on cue my husband called on his way home from serving at church, and I humbly asked him to swing by the store to see if he could find a snow globe to replace the one I had broken. He quickly jumped in to help. As he always does.

Not a tone of judgement or chiding for clumsiness, he simply said yes. When little things like this could’ve ruffled his feathers, he only offered encouragement and care. I had a profound sense that I wasn’t standing in the middle of a mess, I was on water-soaked, fake-snow splattered, broken-glass glittered holy ground.

As I began to pick up the pieces of glass I sliced my finger. Blood began to run into the water. The whole thing was a disaster. I continued to clean it up, but with each stage of clean up, I was humbled lower and lower.

I was now ready to receive.

So I ran to my Bible app. God had been whispering for a couple of weeks now that my joy was complete in him. So I went to 1 John and read the entire book, scanning and searching, seeking for a sign, a word. I kept reading until I came across confirmation from God that this broken snow globe was Him.

1 John 5:6-8, “This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For these are the three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood.”

The Spirit was speaking through the water that was all over the floor and the blood coming from my finger. The three that testify where testifying. And I immediately thought of the communion verse in my mind. “This is my body broken for you.”

Jesus didn’t come to give us the snow globe version of life. The one where we can control the storms and where we can capture the pretty moments and gloss over anything else that doesn’t fit into the atmosphere of attractive. He isn’t a fan of poised plans encased in glass and gold.

He came to set the example of the broken life. The one that is busted open to speak the truth.

A few moments after my snow globe apologetics, my husband sent me a picture of him holding a brand new globe, whole and gleaming. It was the exact replica of the original one. In fact, it wasn’t a replica at all. It was brand new.

He added this line below the picture: “You deserve the world.”

And again I’m reminded, my husband preaches the most profound messages if I’m awake enough to hear them. Especially this year.

Because this year, his prayers changed. And in essence, so did we.

His prayers over us before we fall asleep have become this safe space; a globe of gladness that the world can not touch. And it has been nights and nights of my husband’s gentle and Spirit led prayers this year that have somehow backfilled the holes we’ve had in our hearts from harder nights over the years. The ones where we wince when we remember the dark thoughts that used to swirl around.

But as I read my husband’s text over and over with the broken globe all over the floor and the memories of a year soaked in his heaven-led prayers, I understood Christmas.

“You deserve the world” became a symbol of the cross. If the world is broken, which my Bible says it is, then yes, I deserve emergency clean ups and bloodied fingers. I deserve soggy carpet and splintered expectations. I deserve broken globes without the hope of repair or replacement.

But what I get instead is a brand new version of my same old junk. I get a shiny new world, where Jesus bends down next to me, with his knees cut and bloodied and begins washing my feet with the water I spilled. This is the good news of Christmas. 

Personally, I’m more than thankful I have Jesus and my husband bowing their heads in prayer on my behalf—there’s no better way to be a mess of a person than that.

We can let the world fall away. We can watch it break apart before us. Because it isn’t the world that matters, it's the ones who kneel before you and help you pick up the pieces one prayer at a time. It’s the moments where all is lost and yet everything is found.

When we drop the ball, or the globe, in life—Jesus makes quick work of beginning to bind split skin with the swaddling clothes of his humility. He encourages us while we meticulously pick out the pieces of glass before us. He understands our brokenness even more than we do.

He tells all of us who listen, it's not the brokenness we are responsible for— it is to believe that a brand new world is possible. To receive the generosity of a new globe. To embrace a new picture of his faithfulness unfolding one seemingly insignificant prayer at a time.

So I'm learning its okay to be someone who breaks perfectly good Christmas gifts. Because perfectly good isn’t nearly as life changing as perfectly loved.

The Missing

This has been the season of the missing in my house.

My favorite fall jacket vanished into thin air the moment the temperature dipped. I've drove myself insane looking over the same rows of clothes  trying to find it. But I can do without it.

Even though it was a Vera Wang jacket that I found at Goodwill for $12. Vera. Wang. And even though it was my best thrift find of all time. I. Can. Do. Without. It. Sigh...

And then just two days ago, a brand new book that I was eating up after a long span of buying books that tasted like sawdust to my soul, Learning How to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor simply took flight from the place I put it on the coffee table. I've looked on every book shelf and in my and daughter's "library" which is a collection of randomly stacked books that she steals from my nightstand. Nowhere to be found. Just gone.

But around the same time as those two trivial things, we lost a treasure of a different kind: my son's beloved and raggedy teddy bear. Teddy has been his constant companion since he was an infant. Five years of comfort, crying, playing and being "best friends" has now disappeared into some abyss where childhood goes to retire. There's this ache in my heart over this bundle of "fluff and stuff"; it feels familiar and there's a glimmer of my own story in there somewhere.

When my son tugs on my arm and tells me how much he misses him, I just break inside. Even though I know it is just a teddy bear. I find myself dreaming of finding Teddy for him. I've looked in every place possible; I called Starbucks (where the lady acted like I was a crazy person), Home Depot and asked my parents to inspect their cars. And yet, I just have this sad feeling that he's sitting in the rain somewhere. Alone.

Teddy meant something to my son. My son gave him purpose. My son gave him a place he was needed. He gave him a name (even if it was unoriginal) and he gave him love. 

The weight of losing something we value beyond price flips our perspective upside down; it bleeds into compartments where logic can't go. We retrace steps. We whisper desperate prayers. All the while trying to explain away why we care so much about something that was made in a factory somewhere. In reality, it was just a toy. I know, I know.

Teddy was literally falling apart and had had his arms and head sewn back on. Twice. He had been devalued by the simple act of doing life with my energetic son. And yet, it was his pilled fur and saggy head that gave him worth; that made him alive to us; that gave Teddy a star spot in my son's childhood storyline.

That's what love does. Love takes ordinary, non-interesting things and breathes life into them. Gives them scars and snuggles. Our experiences become their experiences. Our memories wrap around these small pieces of our personal history and our stories become folded in between.

My son has had five wonderful birthdays, and I am thankful for every single one. However, this year when he turned five it was a harder one to throw. He wasn't a little kid anymore. Toddler-dom was gone. I had prayed for this moment. I had longed desperately for easier days, when I wasn't bogged down by his energy and his temperament, where grunts would become sentences and temper tantrums, logical conversations.

And I don't miss my son being little, I just see how much I have changed. How we all have transformed. I see how much my husband and I have changed. In some ways for the better, the deeper and richer stuff, and yet in some spots for the more ragged. We bear the scars, figuratively and physically, of bearing and raising children.

The bags under out eyes are heavier, the tension of being torn in several different directions has left us with stitched limbs and love muscles too. And yet, our love is more valuable, there has been more of an investment, there is more to protect and a harder road ahead of us; one where we have to daily decide not to check out citing the worn out and disappointed places.

And I'm reminded of the rip-my-heart-out scene in Inside Out. The one where my son and I sat sobbing together. It is when the main character's imaginary friend Bing-Bong was left behind in a sea of other "childlike" things. I feel like I was watching every child's rite of passage. I could feel the innocence burning away into the hard realities and all I wanted to do is fashion a life-sized shield to protect my son from what was coming.

But I can't. Not only is it impossible, but I  don't see God doing that either. He doesn't stick us inside a bubble so we don't feel loss, anger, oppression or depression. He doesn't construct the road so that we can detour seasons of the missing.  Because here's the secret that God has wrapped up in the taking of things or in the losing of them: it is always replaced with something better.  

I've learned that God isn't an empty god. He doesn't do exchanges with tokens of nothingness. He is a full God. Full of so many valuable things that have the marks of hard loving all over them. He is full of grace. Full of compassion. Full of mercy. (Psalm 145:8) He is full of forgiveness. (Psalm 103:8) He is full of great love. (Eph. 2:4) He gives increase. (1 Cor. 3:6)

For some reason, we oftentimes think that God wants to take away; to subtract from our lives. We distrust the benefits of obedience. We distrust his vision for us. Holiness and peace seem like wooden nickels in a metal bucket, while the American version of Christianity–accumulation, perfection, constant improvement–sparkles like a room of golden coins; one that resembles what Scrooge McDuck swam in in DuckTales.

And this is the place where some of us are okay with losing the ragged, worn out version of our lives and our loves because it means we can quickly replace it with a brand new something. To take the losses and replace them with bigger and better holds a danger: nothing will ever be good enough.

The marks of hard love, pilled fur, stitched limbs and hearts, ragged bones, and weary prayers should never be seen as valueless. In the reverse economy where God says the poor are rich, these are the choice jewels of life.

Teddy is gone and that's terribly sad. Eventually, I will get my son a replacement, because every kid needs a teddy bear. But even so, I am looking forward to the day when his new bear is ragged, worn out, tired and broken in. Love looks used, worn in and out, adored and abused.

 Just look at the cross.

We're in this together,
M