Making Memories in the Mess

What is going on around us is not always clear. I find myself using my shirt to wipe clean the lenses of my glasses from the smudges and the dirt of the days activities. When I finally slow down in the afternoon, I'm always amazed that I've managed to look through the filthy lenses and read and teach, to cook and clean, to manage a home, and drive here and there. Cleaning up the messes and healing happens in the strangest places through some unlikely activities.

Christmas has been one of those holidays that has been a big deal to me. It is a holiday for family to be close. It is a happy holiday. It tells a happy story of a Savior who loves not only me, but every one, no matter the mistakes we make. There's a jolly human-elf guy passing out presents, eating cookies, and laughing. What's not to be happy about?

It has smells. It has feelings. It has textures. It has colors. It has tastes. It has people. For me growing up, it was oatmeal cookies, peanut butter, chocolate balls, trips to visit my cousins, and my Grandma and Grandpa King.

My Grandma and Grandpa King (Aren't they a handsome couple?!)

It was their Christmas tree covered in icicles, the big boxes covered in Rainbow Bright wrapping paper and Mickey Mouse Christmas paper Santa delivered every Christmas, and driving down Chicago Street to see and read the story of Jesus' birth, life, death and resurrection told in Christmas lights.

And then, sometimes, something interrupts. Tragedy. For me, Grandma passed. I was 16. Ten years later a beautiful little girl was born, but I didn't know, yet. Then another year went by. A beautiful boy was born. Another year went by. In 2008, this little girl and little boy needed to know what that Savior did for them.

You see life is messy, and they needed some stability and I had a longing to see Christmas celebrated for a family redeemed. And in 2008 we got a call and said, "yes", not knowing that it would be permanent, but hoping maybe it could.

And tonight, we made more memories, six years later, the family Christmas tree before, bare with some lights and beautiful wooden beads. It could be organized, uniform ornaments that match, and ribbons placed just so, and the lights shining and twinkling:

Before

Then we decorated. We sang Christmas carols. The kids pulled out handmade ornaments from before and after their adoption, ones we picked out as a family and ones they were given as Christmas presents from their Grandma and Grandpa King. And then the tree came into focus:

After

More healing happened as the kids took more ownership of the holiday and directed which ornaments go where, and they remembered making some and couldn't believe they made others. Pieces of themselves were regained tonight, put back in place-to a place of belonging. Tonight was for keeps.