The tree is lopsided this year. Despite my best efforts, it either leans, or the star bends one way or the other, and don't get me started on the ornaments. There are broken ornaments, ornaments that look like they came from garage sales or thrift stores, and even a few home-made ornaments. Some parts of the tree have two or three ornaments on a branch while other parts are as bare as Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. But what do you expect when you have four children age 10 and under that try to help decorate? Add to that two cats (one who thinks the branches are chew toys and the other who likes to use the upper boughs as her personal sleeping space). The tree has been nearly knocked over once, re-decorated twice and re-arranged more times than you will hear "White Christmas" on the Christmas music only radio station. Still, it's lopsided.
Yet, to my children, it is the most wonderful thing in the living room. When they see it, their eyes light up brighter than the tangled strands that adorn the limbs. It is their tree, and it is in their living room. And that makes it special to them. They can't see that it's lopsided.
I imagine God looks at us the same way. We have parts that are broken. We have areas of our lives that we try to cover up with superficial decorations while other areas remain unattended and bare. We are lopsided. Yet God sees us differently. We are His people; the objects of His affections. We are special to Him. It's not that He can't see we're lopsided, He chooses not to. That's why Christ came into the world... to set the lopsided things of this world straight.
So to all my lopsided friends out there, from one lopsided tree to another, I wish you a Merry Christmas!
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