Christmas Season in Chile

This is my Christmas tree last year…..

This is my tree this year.

They are definitely different trees – I think we can all agree on that! However, the big and beautiful one was dead. It’s roots were cut off and it was for decoration only. Although it was big and full of beautiful lights, it went into the garbage on January first and was burned up. This year’s tree is small, fledgling, and kind of ugly – but it’s alive and we’re going to plant it on our new piece of land in a few weeks.

It’s been an interesting year – one filled with strange turns of events, incredible gifts, lots of loss, and many good-bye’s, and not a few unmet expectations … which is typical of real life, but it’s the first year ever, I’ve had a live Christmas tree. It’s the first year ever I’m going to get to plant it on our family’s piece of land.

Nothing about this Christmas is normal. It’s a warm seventy-two degrees outside, the kids are not on winter break, but summer vacation, we live in a house that still doesn’t feel like home … we miss cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents like nobody’s business and the people in our church have no idea who we are.

Life in Chile is nothing like I expected it to be. It’s better and worse. It’s harder and easier. It’s more frustrating and a whole lot more simple. It’s gentle and meek, and also harsh and abrasive. In reality, any place that isn’t home, takes some getting used to. And right now, I find myself with a choice, will I invite Jesus into my real life, into the mess, into the disappointments, into the loss, into the simple and abrasive, the gently and the lowly? Or will I only let Jesus hang out on the peripheral, where things seemed to be easier and not so difficult? Will I only let Jesus comfort me in my loss and disappointments, or will I let God lead me into the joy of new things in a different and new land … ? Will I adjust my sails and go in deeper or will I get stuck in what’s not, instead of what is?

The incarnation is the gift of God’s presence, here with me right now.

I remember months ago, I was wondering if it would all be okay here in Chile. If we’d make it. I would get up late at night, anxious and worried, and pray on my knees in my kitchen, begging God to help me, to give me wisdom, hope, clarity. And a couple of times he spoke so clearly, almost audible. The voice came out of the silent night and pierced my doubting soul. One time God said “Whatever price you get for your house, I promise it will be more than enough.” And I’m clinging to that promise. With the cost of living going up, with food prices rising, gas prices rising … is it ever enough? He said it would be – and so I have a choice to believe him, or hang out in the land of wondering…

The other thing God said late one night, in all the tears of uprooting and laying my dreams on the altar, he said “You know, I’ll be in Chile too. In fact, I’m already there.”

And He is. Because Jesus came. He put on skin and made our frustrations, our battles, our disappointments a part of his own story. He’s not far away. He’s not way up in heaven telling me to get myself together and stop mourning my beautiful kitchen on 237th St. and all my old friends… He understands what it’s like to leave home, to leave the familiar, to leave so much beautiful life, and go into a new place, and struggle to be accepted, to be loved, to be known. He gets my story. And he gets yours. Because he came and lived here among us.

Life in Chile is real life and although I miss home, and I miss many of the comforts of home, of being known, understood, being given the benefit of the doubt because of intimacy in relationships, I’m here now. I’m here because of a promise that He was already here. That he would go before us … and make a way. Will I trust his way? Or complain that it isn’t my way?

Christmas in Chile seems different than Christmas in Seattle. But it’s really not.

He came and pitched his tent and lived among us …

Much love,

Tina