Scraggly
On a snowy hillside in Thistle Utah, we hiked up the slope searching for a Christmas tree. Trees in that desert canyon were more scraggly, bushy like than the triangle shape pine tree that graced the picture I had in my mind of what our living room would look like on Christmas morning. The crisp air freezing our nostrils urged us to find a suitable specimen quickly. As my dad used his ax and handsaw to chop the juniper tree, the pungent scent of fresh cut wood drifted into the air and awakened our senses. After dragging the juniper down the slope, my dad tied it to the top of our 1967 Chrysler New Yorker. It clung to the roof, sprawling over the edges and down the rear window as we drove back to our quiet neighborhood in Provo. My mom got out her prized red- satin ornaments and we struggled to find firm enough twigs amongst the stabbing, prickly needles to attach them to. We discovered the bluish, purple berries peeking out among the bushiness and decided we’d just add a few of the red balls the best we could and let the berries be the natural ornaments. With a strand of lights circling around and through to complete the look, we stood back and declared, “It has its charm.”
On Christmas morning, we each had 1 present under the tree. The somber atmosphere was competing with the cheery tunes from Christmas with Ray Conniff playing on the hi-fi.
Mom served us hot cocoa and toast while we took in the scene that Christmas morning.
The tree, the family, the cocoa and toast, the music and the gifts.
That memory has been nagging at me to be written down. What’s the message it wants me to know these many years later? We didn’t have much financially at that time. My dad used to say, ‘we’re not poor, we just don’t have any money.’ We had moved three times in 2 years and were living in an unfamiliar house away from what was secure and familiar. We used to have a fine house full of five kids known as The boys, Barb, and the little girls. Now it was just Sally and me. The little girls. That year felt sparse as if it were missing pieces never to be whole again.
My mom had a calm way of seemingly combining our current situations with her steadfast faith into a sense of security and belonging to an eternal family with Christ as the frame. His grace and mercy filled in the emptiness and as we sat together near that scraggly bushy juniper, He became the natural berries, the perfect ornament that marked its beauty and transforms that memory of that morning into a piece of my faith as it continues to grow. He is the finisher of my faith as I cling onto this journey towards my heavenly home.