Pockets

I’m using a borrowed Christmas tree this year.

We found it in the garage of my in-law’s house where we are staying for two years while they serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Jacob dragged it inside and set it up: his yearly willing contribution to my Christmas chaos. Only the top wouldn’t fit right, like it also had been borrowed but from another tree. He balanced it on top, connected the pre-lit lights, and voila:

Patches of lights lit up in random places.

Pockets of light.

I found a set of string lights in a drawer. I turned off the pre-lit ones and restrung our borrowed tree. I climbed back up the ladder in the garage to pilfer silver disco ball ornaments and found an angel tree topper. My daughter and I fluffed the branches and vacuumed the sea of artificial needles off the floor.

An hour later, I wandered into the indoor storage room. Tucked up in the back corner, carefully packed in the original box, was a second tree. I remembered my mother-in-law telling me this was where the Christmas decorations were.

I think the garage tree came from a second set of older decorations. Maybe even ones they used outside. The tree didn’t need to be fancy because it spent the winter in the cold and elements.

But we dragged it inside.

And since I’m working full time and no one really wants to fluff a second tree, I left our borrowed garage tree up and slowly decorated it with random ornaments from our new neighbors. On one crooked branch, I even tied a pretty ribbon pilfered from a box of treats.

Sometimes I feel like this tree: I’ve spent the year in metaphorical winters and cold. I’m not really sure my pieces are fitting together right. And my hope comes on in patches: pockets of light that need a few borrowed strands to even me out.

Last winter, I was standing in my parents’ kitchen when my dad stepped in from the garage calling, “Guess who I found!”

And I looked up to see Cynthia walking in behind him. Cynithia is my older cousin who has been living in Florida for the past few years.

I’m not sure how I crossed the room. It must have been an inelegant run until I found myself throwing my arms around her. I hugged her so tightly, my glasses came off. And I started crying.

No one else started crying.

I later asked my daughter if I embarrassed her. I’m pretty sure I looked ridiculous. She was kind enough to soften it a bit. “It was a little weird. But I could tell you were happy.”

I worried about the flubbed social experience for a while. Then I decided not to give away the better gift this time. I replayed that moment over and over, not because I wished I could change it, but because I wanted to keep feeling it.  

I wish I could explain what it’s like better: that moment when the parts of you come home, the strands of love you’ve left scattered about in trails behind you fall back into place, and you realize you haven’t been whole, just limping along waiting for the day when all the pieces of your soul click into place.

I was pretty sure I’d experienced heaven. A pocket of light reminding me that even though I can’t have everything I want now, it’s not gone. It’s just on hold for a moment.

I’ve been calling these moments pockets. They are spaces in the dark we purposely fill with light. A night with my daughter and niece seeing how many highland cows we can find in a store. The early morning snuggles with two sleepy dogs. An evening at a choir concert. A sunset burning orange across a lake.

For a moment in September, I felt guilty for light. For laughter or happiness of any kind when suffering exists around me unmet and unsatiated. But really the only way I can contend with dark, is in pockets. I take right here, right now, and I cup a little light in my hands for those right next to me. And sometimes, when my light is patchy and a little uneven, I borrow strands of lights from people around me.

This Christmas, I hope you find pockets of light. I hope you give a pocket of light. If you are missing parts of yourself or are a little worn out or crooked. If you only light up in patches. I hope you remember you still have worth. And if you are lonely, I hope you remember the love we’ve left scattered through our lives comes back.

This is the true miracle of Christmas. This is why the baby in the manger matters. That child became our Savior and Redeemer. He lives! And some day, we will hear “Guess who’s here!” and it will be all those people we’ve been missing, coming home.

We aren’t whole right now. And our offerings are imperfect.

But there is still a lot of light to find and to create and to enjoy. We just have to fill our pockets.