decking the halls [of my heart]

i'm writing this post from my bed where i've been for the past three days since the flu decided to pay me a visit the day after christmas. in a way, it's perfect that this post be written from amid the mountain of tissues, medicines, and hot water mugs that surround me. it's so "not perfect" that it's perfect.

this christmas has been the most different one of my entire life! between the flurry and dizziness of getting engaged on thanksgiving day just as the christmas holiday was beginning, and being in neither of my familiar places to celebrate the season, there have been many times when nothing "feels" right. it just doesn't "feel" like christmas. for any of you seeing pics posted of me on facebook with my handsome fiance looking as if all is bliss, don't be deceived into thinking that our life is without it's hardships, lessons, and challenges. this post is about how in it's different-ness and hardness and unchristmasy-ness it has also been the most beautiful.

in the states as christmas approaches, anywhere you look you can see signs of the season - christmas trees in houses, stores, businesses, malls decked out to encourage shoppers to get in the "christmas spirit" in THEIR mall, strains of "silent night" and "joy to the world" can be heard wherever you go because somehow at christmas time it's ok to proclaim from the housetops that "Christ our Savior is born" in the public arena. and from the christian arena, there are even a decent amount of reminders that "Jesus is the Reason for the season." families are preparing their annual visits, favorite goodies and dishes, wrapping gifts, and houses smell of cinnamon and spices and fireplaces glow. in our own ways we are all trying to find christmas. we are searching for a feeling that we once had, whether it be when we were children and christmas was magical, or that one year that it seemed everything was perfect - all the family was gathered round the tree, everything was harmonious, all was calm and still as dad read from the advent story book by candlelight...

so what happens when none of those "feelings" that seem to make christmas are anywhere to be found? what happens to the Savior's birthday when there is no pile of gifts under the tree to commemorate the great Gift that He gave of Himself? what happens when looking out the window there are no lights or greenery or christmas trees to please our eyes and give us that "christmas feeling" in our hearts? what happens to our hearts when that warm family feeling cannot be recreated? when hurts and rifts and disagreements are too deep for harmony and peaceful gatherings? what happens when death enters a home and leaves that family circle feeling empty and broken and unfixable and irreparably void of the warm feelings christmas is supposed to bring?

this christmas, stripped [just when i think it can't be stripped any more...] of so much of the glitter and spice and eye and ear pleasers that my heart has come to look and long for at this time of year, i have been amazed as He has shown me, with more clarity and depth than ever before, the beauty and wonder of His Son coming to earth.

" ...and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory..."
john 1:14 tells us.

the gifts that have decorated my christmas this year cannot be bought in a store, wrapped in pretty paper, or put under a tree. they are not feelings that can be drummed up by the sounds of a christmas song or the smell of cookies baking or the sight of fresh fallen snow glittering with the reflection of christmas lights, or even by cuddling down with my favorite man to watch a christmas movie. [let it be said here that said favorite man has been GREAT in making me feel loved and special although i'm spending this christmas so far from my family.]

this christmas as i sat with a group of students, around an open bible, sharing and discussing the story of how and why He came, the miracles surrounding His virgin birth, the very miracle of the Gift that He is to all of mankind, my heart hung a twinkling decoration in honor of this moment. the longer we talked about His birth, His unselfish love for us, and His immense and timeless plan to become like us, take on our skin and bones, and feel our very pain and sorrow and discomfort and sickness, then to die for us so that we might know the Light of Life...the brighter the ornament in my heart shone.

hearing new baby christians thank Him for His coming, tell Him how grateful they are and how unworthy they are for Him to come with His light into their darkness, how they only want to live for Him, my heart hung another ornament. here, with no lights, no tree, no outward signs at ALL of christmas as we have come to expect it to be, here were His disciples "getting it." they might not get what christmas means to us in the states, but they get HIM. here was the true meaning of christmas.

learning, sacrificing, messing up, and growing in my relationship with my husband-to-be, working through some difficult things with someone very dear to my heart, realizing that christmas isn't a time to cover up and hide unlovely or unholy things, but to rejoice that HE CAME to our unholiness, yet another tear-be-sparkled ornament graced the corners of my heart. coming to accept the grace that says christmas is not only for joyful things, and in all reality, this is WHY we can be joyful. this is why we have christmas. not to cover up or run away from things that make us uncomfortable or that look and feel messy, but because IN them, we have a PRESENT Savior...our Emmanuel, who came to be our Shepherd, our Guide, our Helper, our Rescuer - not separate from these everyday messes, pains, failures, and difficulties, but IN them.

"the Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve...to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of despair..."
 isaiah 61:1-3  so for me this christmas, the all-encompassing lesson to be learned has been that He came not to give me one warm fuzzy night a year of "silent nights" where all is calm and bright, but to enter my sin, suffering, unholiness, gloom, despair, struggles, messiness, grouchy moods, unchristlike attitudes, and bring the Light of His life to outshine my darkness. writing out from under the mound of blankets, tissues and such that have continued to collect during the writing of this epistle, i can say with joy that three sick/flu days after christmas, the decorations He hung in my heart this season are still shining brightly. [good thing because i'm watching the strands of lights on my sad little tree burn out one by one.] praying He will continue to teach me more of Himself...what it means that He is my Light and my Life...in whatever season, whatever situation i find myself.

"In Him was life and the life was the light of men. the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."
john 1:4-5

portrait #1

15 year old guang peng.
the mute one.

who just talks with his eyes.

he sat in our makeshift camp office looking curiously around as the orphanage director introduced him and his three friends to us. my busy, overworked brain tried to think of a million and one things and rush ahead to be sure we were prepared for our next activity as the names flew by me. but when she said his name, “this is guang peng. you have to keep an eye on him…he’s a rascal, this one.” i stopped, looked down, and two of the deepest, fullest brown eyes i’ve ever seen looked half-innocently, half-mischievously up at me. there was something in those eyes that spoke volumes. something that grabbed me and drew me in. the director continued, “he’s mute. he doesn’t speak, but he can hear and understand. just…keep an eye on him.” she didn’t need to say anymore. my heart was gone.

over the next few days we became best of friends, guang peng, in his shy, silent way; speaking, almost yelling, without words. i’d turn around and there those eyes would be, calling to me from across a room, pleading with me to join him. i found out why the director had said to watch him…he was a runner. one moment he’d be there, the next he’d be gone. just a few minutes though, and he would appear back at my side, laughing at me with those eyes as i realized he’d fooled me again. we talked about things too. he’d slowly look through all the pictures on my camera and i’d talk to him about camps, about life, about things that made me laugh and cry. and he’d answer with his eyes.

on our last night together he laid beside me on the floor during our evening movie, making constant silent bids for my affection.  he knew it was almost time for goodbye, but he didn’t want it to come. he didn't make one sound, but everything in his actions, looks, movements was screaming out for a mother's love. i might have been the closest he ever came to it that night, him all curled in a fetal position inside my arms, taking my hands and wrapping them around his face, closing his eyes and breathing me in like he wanted to remember that place to come back to forever.

so many secrets hidden away behind those eyes. i’ll never know what tragedies, heartaches, and tears hide behind the locked up place in his heart that also binds his tongue. i only know that those eyes, so full of understanding, and so pleading as they spoke the unspeakable found their way into the memoirs of my heart. i will never forget them. they are one of the images that drive me. as i live to go beyond the walls that guang peng and children like him put up to protect themselves from a harsh and violent world. as i live to build behind those walls a kingdom of love and gradually to see those walls crumble and fall, conquered by the only Love that will never fail.

finding the words

how do you get to the end of a summer and really reach the point where you can put it into words?

how do you capture weeks of camps, and all the kid hugs, laughs, dances, games, tears, i love yous, and sad goodbyes in a blogpost?

there are so many stories.

so many emotions.

so many deep down experiences that really, when it comes down to it, can only ever be captured with the heart.

for me, i think there is a tendency to shy away from any invasion into my house of memories that is stored away after a summer, or a winter, or a lifetime of living and loving.

rather than attempt, and fail, to convey for someone else's comprehension, the countless stories i've encountered, the endlessly deep eyes i've looked into, the hopelessly, gut-wrenching cries i've heard, i just remain silent.

in my quiet place i take out those memories, and i contemplate, i grieve, i resolve, i become re-invigorated to make changes in my world, in the lives i know, in the ways i can.

sometimes when someone asks me, "how was china?" or "how's kinmen?" i try.

i try to open the locked up place and let them in.

i'm glad they care enough to ask.

i'm glad they want to know.

but it's hard, in a few minutes of conversation, to see them really grasp or fathom the depth of the story i am telling...the grandmother, the idol worshipper, the orphan, the real-life person behind the story.

this summer's end, as i have returned "home" to the states for the time being, i have found myself coping with all the stories crashing on the shores of my heart by hiding. not that i have stopped feeling or remembering, i just stopped going there.

stopped going deep.

stopped taking out the key and entering into the locked up place.

because it's easier if i just focus on here and now.

it's easier if i don't feel the pain.

it's better all around if it stays locked up.

but somehow today, i found myself forced to remember.

somehow something triggered those feelings locked up deep down.

memories of faces, of cuddles, of tantrums, of desperate bids for love and affection crashed over my heart again like waves that i couldn't and didn't want to hold back.

as i wept for their loss, ached for their abandonment, prayed for their rescue and healing, i longed for a way to convey each story, and paint each face in a way that brings to life for others these forgotten ones.

as i wracked my brain for a way to do this, the answer came.

"you have to write."

and so this post is a resolve to write.

i write for tian xi, and for you peng and guang peng 
for justin and for jo
for cindy and lucy and antony and susan and for the scores of people i can't name here who have made their imprints on my heart.

it might be slow in coming.

it might be one slow story at a time.

but i want to at least try to create with words pictures of the people i see and love.

i'm taking out the key and i'm walking inside...

who wants to go with me?