Christmas Card Photos
Hey everyone, Tis the season to be getting your family's photo taken for your Christmas cards this year! It's never as easy as we hope or imagine. In our family someone was always unhappy about it. My daughter-in-law told me one year she and her husband, my son, were having a big argument as the photographer arrived and they had to act all happy and loving! Because I know you too can relate I've written a prayer about our family experience and what I've learned about my Savior. Hope my words speak to your heart. Barbara
Christmas Card Photos
It’s a lovely tradition going back decades of years my grandfather in his properly starched uniform a black-and-white photo printed “Merry Christmas” sent home from India during the war.
Our first Christmas we sent a photo, the two of us, me wrapped in a bright orange coat, my husband in ’70s plaid bundled against beautiful Boulder snow.
This tradition repeated annually over forty plus years to share our family with yours to show how we’ve all grown to wish you and yours hope and happiness.
Patience, time, repeated “Say cheese,” parental bribing, threats, eventually a smiling, even perfectly peaceful image emerges.
Never displayed on the photos we send, the arguments, ’tudes, gritted teeth, our collective ugly brokenness— mine, my husband’s, our children’s.
Though I hoped and prayed my family would all love each other like our photos portray, offenses have been suffered creating discomfort among siblings and more pain than I imagined for us parents.
I understand the lyrics penned by Longfellow, “‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said; ‘For hate is strong, And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!’”[1]
Nothing hurts like family hurt. Wounded lambs, wandering sheep Chicks who refused to be gathered Pain piercing a parent’s heart.
Little disagreements, big misunderstandings become seeds of distance, discomfort when children grow up. Family geography widens as these now young adults choose their own values, careers, finances, parenting styles, school choices, church choices.
We are not alone. Every grown-up family I know suffers passive-aggressive behaviors, depressions, woundedness, pride, failure to forgive holding on to hurts the ideal of siblings as adult best friends an uncommon reality.
Dysfunctional relationships the norm not the exception in the body of Christ. God’s children, His family, all sinners, all broken, all imperfect yet saved by grace, connected by blood and adoption. Even the perfect Parent does not have perfect kids; all of us have rebelled, gone astray.
And so our family mirrors His. Even biblically grounded moms and dads cannot avoid damaging, can’t perfectly protect. No family is devoid of brokenness, pain, heartache; our ever-present sin nature both unites and divides us.
Beautiful Savior, announced on Christmas morn, born a sacrifice for Eden’s shattered mirrors, only You can transform hearts heal hurts resurrect relationships restore all that sin has stolen.
This Christmas season, O God, bring revival to my heart, for it is in me where change must begin.
My goal must always be Your glory and fame not a Christmas photo to be admired.
One day our smiling faces will be authentic perfectly reflecting the joy we now pretend too often at Christmas.
“Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: ‘God is not dead nor doth He sleep; The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men.’”[2]
Come quickly, Lord Jesus.
Amen.
[1] “Christmas Bells,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1863. [2] Longfellow, “Christmas Bells.” Isaiah 53:6