The Present

I'm the worst at hiding Christmas presents. Yuletide surprises just don't really happen around here because I always get found out. If we're being honest, I'll throw out there that I have a band of offspring who are impatient, conniving, super-sleuths that conspire against me in order to unearth every last treasure I have hidden away. They inherited the combined gifts of forensic detection and puppy-dog-eyes manipulation from...well...their other parent. And it's really annoying. Maybe this year will be different, though. If yesterday was any indication, I'm off to a good start.

The big, brown box had come by UPS and immediately I had known what it was...an American Girl Doll. Kaya, to be exact. Meredith has wanted Kaya, the beautiful, long-haired, Nez-Perce plastic playtime pal, for a long, very long, time. I finally broke down last week after a nostalgic moment brought on by my first glimpse of an outdoor plastic, lighty-up nativity scene, covered my eyes during the online check-out, and bought her.

After the black-ops exchange I had with the mailman, I had smuggled Kaya upstairs into my room and successfully hidden her under the bed. Almost on cue, after lovingly shoving the plastic box into the deep, dark abyss of lint balls and lost things, I heard the clompy-clomping of winter boots racing up the stairs toward me. Bring it, little children. You ain't finding nothin' up in here.

But as my two eldest progeny crossed the threshold into my room, all six of our eyeballs registered on the same thing at the same time...the American Girl catalog that had been left out on the bed by mistake. It had been inside of the box with Kaya, but because of a total rookie-mom move it was now out in plain view for the whole world to see.

"Hey, what's this?," Meredith asked. She picked it up and immediately started thumbing through.

And that, my friends, is how another Christmas surprise bites the dust. Or is it?

Much to my astonishment, she wasn't scouring all the secret hiding places in my room. She didn't seem to associate the catalog with the possibility of an actual doll being in the house at all. In her little girl mind it was just beautiful, random mail that had come. As she sifted through, page by page, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. That. Was. Close. My heartbeat slowed to an even pace as I watched her show her little brother (much to his chagrin) every single, blasted item in the catalog related to the coveted Kaya doll. Kaya has a teepee and clothes and books and jewelry. A bedroll for cold nights out on the plains. A horse. Clothes for the horse. It went on and on. Meredith's eyes were big as she poured over every fringed, little faux-leather native-American item with excitement. Rapidly, though, exhilaration turned to longing, and longing sorrow. I noticed as she looked and looked, the tone of her voice became more and more sad. She wanted Kaya more than anything. Kaya was going to be her best friend. They would do everything together.  If only...It became apparant that in her mind she would never have that beautiful doll. It was just too big a thing to wish for. Although in that moment Kaya lay happily in her box less than 2 feet from where Meredith was standing, in Meredith's mind she was worlds away.

As her mom, it was hard to be witness to the longing. I pretended to fold laundry as I listened in, acknowledging that at any moment I could spin her around, put my hands on her little shoulders, look her in the eyes and say, "Guess what? I have your Kaya doll right here!" I could, at any time, pull that box out from under the bed, hand it over, and take her longing away. It was painful not to, but keeping me sane was the reality of what was to come for her. I knew she would have her heart's desire. I knew that just around the bend was Christmas morning, that she would race down the stairs and see that perfectly-sized box wrapped up in pretty paper, waiting for her. And in the ever-clumsy and often-ridiculous way in which we Christian parents attempt to balance gift-giving and one of our holiest days, I wanted it to be about Him. I wanted the reason for such a gift to be a celebration of Him. The gift was already hers. It was purchased. It was wrapped. And it belonged to her. She just didn't know it yet.

God, help me to trust in the gifts that you have already purchased, that are promised to me, but which I cannot yet hold in my hands or see with my own eyes. 

Truth be told, if I were to put down on paper the longings of my own heart, I could probably fill a catalog or two. As human beings, of course we want things for ourselves. We want comfort. We want to be loved, acknowledged and affirmed. We want financial freedom. We want justice for the ideals we believe in. And we want these things now.

So often, as I scour the pages within myself, the desires of my heart transform themselves into defeat, fear, frustration or sadness because I have failed to have faith in a God who is able, and because I am impatient. If God is really at work in my life, in the world, shouldn't He be proving it by pulling the answers to my heart's desires out from under the bed right now and handing them over to me? Shouldn't I be able to see and touch and feel His tailor-made remedies to the stresses of my life sooner rather than later? More often than I care to admit, I fall into a trap of somehow equating the richness of God's love and interest in me with how quickly He resolves my problems. For some reason that I will probably never understand there is a thin and blurry line between falling on my face in worship of the God who saved me and falling on my face in despair and self pity because I have failed to remember that He is able and that His intentions for me are good...even while I'm waiting on Him.  God is capable. He is willing. He is loving. God knows every need. God sees everything. The past. The future. And, yes, the present.

Today, I need to stop and acknowledge again, anew, who God is. Like a frog in a near-boiling kettle, the subtlety has prevented me from sensing how far I've drifted from a firm belief in the magnitude of His power and strength and love and capability. I need the reminder that he hasn't yet pulled every gift out from under the bed because He knows that the perfect time is coming for those gifts to be an acknowledgement and celebration of Him. He could put His hands on my shoulders, spin me around and deliver into my hands exactly what I want right now if He wanted to. But He knows better. He hurts with me in my longing, but He knows what's coming and He knows it is worth the wait. And to hand them over in any other way, at any other time, would be less than perfect in His perfect plan. And His perfect plan, in the end, will draw me into a deeper understanding that He, Himself, is the answer. He is the remedy. He is the gift.  Already purchased. Within my grasp.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the Lord, " and will bring you back from captivity." Jeremiah 29:11-14