The following is my latest contribution to The Voice, St. Stephen's weekly newsletter:
When I still lived with my parents (and even after I went away to college) I eagerly waited for the first weekend of December. Forget Black Friday or Cyber Monday. For my siblings and I there was but one time to shop for gifts – Christmas Friday.
I’m not sure when this habit began, but by the time I was in middle school Christmas shopping on the first weekend in December had become an annual tradition for my parents. My dad takes Friday off of work and joins my mom in an all-day excursion through the malls and parking lots of Lincoln, Nebraska. They conclude the day with dinner at Outback Steakhouse. Whatever wasn’t accomplished on Friday is dealt with on Saturday, and when the shopping is done the wrapping begins.
Gift-wrapping has become an outlet for my mother’s artistic talents. One of my favorite memories of being home in the weeks leading up to Christmas is exploring the gifts under the tree – taking them out and turning them around, looking at the ribbons and bows and bells and glitter. As my mom takes each gift and turns it into a work of art I imagine that she, the gift-giver, thinks of us, the gift-getters. She envisions the looks of satisfaction and surprise that will cross our faces as we eagerly take ownership of our new possessions. She pictures us using our coffeemakers, watching our DVDs, wearing our earrings, and playing with our cameras. All of this plays through her mind as she listens to Mannheim Steamroller, cuts paper, and curls ribbon on a December afternoon.
Shortly after Thanksgiving break I received an e-mail from my mom asking for my “Christmas List.” I thought back to the days when such a solicitation was hardly necessary. My brother, sister, and I would begin making our wish lists as soon as Christmas lights popped up on houses and candy canes appeared in the aisles of HyVee. The lists often began on the backs of restaurant napkins and eventually made their way to the refrigerator, where they remained for editing until my parents put them to use. Materialistic though it may have been, it was also exciting – making lists and dreaming of gifts and building up hopes for Christmas morning.
As I’ve approached adulthood I find that Christmas gifts and wish lists have lost much of the “magic” that they used to hold. I am not really all that eager to receive the can opener that I need, the crock pot I saw on sale, or the vacuum that I asked for. I will be truly grateful for any gifts I receive, but somehow the hope and mystery seem to have drained away from the whole process.
I reflect on what it was like to receive gifts as a child, to rip off the wrapping of each box, hoping with everything in my six-year-old heart that inside I would find Blaze, the white stuffed horse with the light-up mane or the ballerina Barbie that bends her legs and points her toes. I think of what it must have been like for my parents to give me those gifts. To see my excitement and joy. To watch me cradle my stuffed animals or my brother kiss his Hot Wheels car carrier. How excited they must have been, knowing what was inside each box even as we unwrapped them. And how crushed they must have been each time I rejected the gift given to me; each time I declared that it was the wrong color or the wrong style, not what I asked for or not what I wanted. I stole their joy, as well as my own. I robbed the moment of goodness, leaving it empty and cold. Gratitude is what leads to joy. No matter how great the gift may be, when I am ungrateful the joy is gone. And no matter how small the gift may seem, when I see it as gift, when I give thanks, joy lives and breathes and fills the room with light.
How must my Abba, my Father God feel when he sees the way I respond to the gifts that he gives me? The gifts that he painstakingly creates and specifically selects and sends into my life at just the right moment. Do I delight in the snow that flies through the air and gently adheres to my windshield? Or do I complain about scraping the windows and shoveling the drive way? Do I cherish the niece that sleeps in my bedroom and embrace the blessing of a family together? Or do I begrudge that I must share a bed with my sister and shoot bitter glances at the child who wakes me up with her crying? Do I look for the blessings, or do I pass them over and neglect to be grateful?
When I believe that I deserve a life free of pain, interruption, and inconvenience I am quick to miss the blessing; to see it as frustration, as burden instead of gift. A God who is loving and generous, a God who gives good things and whose character does not change, surely that God is daily lavishing me with love, even when I do not see it. How do I receive his gifts? Do I treat grace like a new toy? Playing with it for a short while and then tossing it aside that I might pick up discontentment or entertain myself with sarcasm? Am I really grateful for what I’ve been given?
I know the answer, and it shames me. It shames me like my memories of the Valentine’s Day when my Dad bought me a plastic head band with rainbow-colored hearts that I could never bring myself to wear, or the Christmas he picked out a black turtle-neck sweater and I exchanged it for a hot pink racerback and a pair of socks. Though all is forgiven, my heart still aches. If only I’d seen the ugliness of ungratefulness. If only I’d known that I was robbing the moment of joy. The way I rob every moment that I don’t count as blessing, as the gift that it is.
I imagine that when I am frustrated with my work and angry with my friends and bitter toward my family that it hurts God’s heart. That he turns toward me in confusion and questions, “My dear Amanda, isn’t this what you wanted? Isn’t this what you asked for?” And when I refuse to recognize gift I look back to him and say, “No. I mean yes, I did pray for work and I did ask for friends and I’ve always wanted to be part of a family, but not like this. It doesn’t fit right. They don’t understand me. I didn’t want this one; I want the life I’ve read about in books and seen in movies and heard of from friends. And what about the gifts you didn’t give me? What about the teaching job that I asked for last Christmas and the salary to pay off my student loans?”
I am a child again; a child who refuses to see past what I don’t have. But patiently, ever so patiently, my Father listens to my discontent. His heart is broken, but not for himself, it is broken for me. He aches to see my own lack of joy, to know the empty that resides within me. He strokes my hair and wipes my tears of anger, bitterness, and frustration. He holds my empty and pours in love. He sets me an example, shows me how to give thanks, and gently begins to open my eyes. “See the blessing,” he urges. “Give thanks for the grace.”
