The eye of the beholder



(These are a few bits that I am bringing over from Facebook...)


My Christmas tree is fairly pathetic. It is lopsided and bare. It has spots that you can see through and an angel that will not sit straight on the tippy-top no matter how many times I fix it. It is covered with a hodge podge of handmade ornaments, mismatched colored balls, and broken garland. It is truly ugly.

A horror to look at, you wonder how it even stands. How is it possible for something so ill put together to last, and yet it does. It has weathered a cat climbing through it's bent branches, a dog trying to pull said cat out by it's tail, and two children grabbing and rearranging it's decorations.

The strangest thing? I love it. I look at it with pride. I sit at night with all the lights turned down and just gaze for hours at it's dim multicolored menagerie. I remember the day my husband brought it home, a cast off from a Black Friday sale. I reminds me of my youngest bringing me the dirty diaper that he had proudly changed himself. It was all wrong, a terrible mess, but his heart was in the right place.

But the real reason I love my tree so much is it is a tangible testament to who I am. A fairly pathetic mess, picked bare in spots and an angel that sits crooked no matter how many times it is fixed. I like to think that God sometimes sits at night with the lights low, and for hours watches the multicolored menagerie of my life with pride. Because He knows it may be all wrong, but my heart is in the right place.

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