The following post is written by East-West Executive Vice President of Field Ministries.
My upbringing was not all that fun. In, fact it was fairly bitter.
Before I say why my childhood was difficult, please let me hasten to say that I was not abused in any way. I always had food and shelter. I had two parents and an intact home. I have nothing to tell Oprah while choking back tears and shocking the audience with horrific tales of harsh abuse. For all this, I thank the Father.
Clearly many people in the world would consider my upbringing to be charmed. And I will say, in the scope of history’s billions of childhoods, mine was closer to charmed than bitter.
Still there were difficult pieces to my childhood. I did not know the Son and thus I had no spiritual resources. I was an emotional orphan in a family of seven. I had no one to speak to about anything. I had a gift for anxiety, worry, fear, obsessing on the negative and worst case scenario. I was emotionally immature, emotionally resource-less and emotionally unstable. My father was a self-absorbed, black and white, moody man. I never knew if the “happy dad” or the “angry dad” was coming home. I knew that either way Dad’s fuse was pretty short. My mom was a buffer between dad and the kids, but she was emotionally distant from all of us. All the trouble and fear and worry that swirled around in my heart and mind… I was left to carry alone—for years and years—absolutely alone.
In the midst of this childhood with my drab and frightening and anxious and uncertain world, I had one source of joy and solace. I had found something that brought some color and happiness into my life. It was pretty simple and you may see it as almost foolish. But for me, as a struggling child, it was a small taste of life.
That source of life and happiness was simply sleeping under the Christmas tree. My parents didn’t allow it, but I would not be deterred from it. During the Christmas season I would go to bed at bed time and lie awake as always—straining to hear or see the monster moving toward my bed to eat me alive. My heart would literally pound while my brother, only 4 yards away, was sound asleep. Eventually I would hear my parents go to their room. The house was dark and eventually silent.
With my heart pounding, because of the dark and because of my parent’s prohibition against getting out of bed, I would get up, take my blanket and pillow, and creep down the stairs as silently as possible on the creaking wood. Once downstairs I would move quickly through the kitchen and into the living room. I would stand silently for a couple of minutes to listen for sounds of having been discovered in my clandestine, downstairs mission.
When I was convinced that everyone was asleep I would go to the Christmas tree and plug in the lights. Then I would spread my blanket under the tree and station my pillow at one end and lie down. I wouldn’t sleep for an hour our two despite the fact that it was midnight or even 2 AM. I would look at the colored lights. I would squint to make them fuzzy and then watch them in full view and then close my eyes to still see the light.
There I was at the age of 6 or 9 or even 12 years old experiencing color and happiness. Something in the lights and color of the tree, the anticipation of gifts, and the magic of the season delivered to me a little experience of color and happiness in a life that was mostly black and white with liberal amounts of unhappiness.
I am very grateful for those nights of color and happiness. Though I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, to this day I sleep under the Christmas tree at least one night in the Christmas season—usually on Christmas Eve. It still feels magical and full of life to me. I am neither a psychiatrist nor the son of a psychiatrist, but I suspect that something special from my childhood is hooked and lifted up when I sleep under the tree these decades later.
The Son said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” He is the one Source of life—eternal life, physical life, emotional life, and all life. In addition to that He is the One Source of abundant life. Some people are alive with drab and colorless days of just getting by. Some people are alive in Him—living abundantly, living lives full of color and joy.
Please be clear that the difference between color and drabness is Him. Very rich people can have drab and unhappy lives while very poor people can have colorful and happy lives. Healthy people can have drab and unhappy lives while sick people can have colorful and happy lives. Famous people can have drab and unhappy lives and unknown people can have colorful and happy lives. The difference is Him.
My wife read this blog and said, ‘This is kind of a downer.”
Well, that will never do for a Christmas season blog. Let me see if I can lift this up a little!
The difference between drab and joy is the Son. And when you know Him, all the little things He gives to us can be sources of color: Christmas tree lights. The Cowboys winning. Egg nog. Gifts. Pecan pie. Walks. A new toy. A cherished toy. A Skype call. Sleeping in. Decking the Halls with Boughs of Holly. Black Friday (safely inside your home while the crowds battle). Reading Travel Required. Watching it rain. Lying on your back on the lawn on a very cold night and looking at the stars. Sleeping under the Christmas tree.
Do yourself a favor: