By the broken parts.

Two things have annoyed me in the past 24 hours. I was sitting beside the Christmas tree yesterday and I noticed a patch at the bottom that was bare of needles. There was just stripped, twiggy brown-ness. The rest of the tree was perfect however. The second thing that annoyed me was my inability to straighten the leg of my broken hip. That was something that had bothered the physio and I thought I was getting better but today I just could not get it right.

Living in the aftermath of broken things and imperfect lives, it is hard to be happy. But I was thinking, maybe life would be easier if we just accepted the things that we cannot change right now. You know, show your ‘worst’ side to the camera, light up every faulty part of the Christmas tree and keep on with the exercises until that leg gets better. Are there things in your life that are just not right? A family member that you struggle to get on with? A manager that you dread facing? A health problem that will not go away?

I used to be able to cover up a lot of things until they became too numerous to hide. This time last year there is no way I would have walked in public with a rollator but now, I have to. The house was nearly always immaculate, with everything in the right place before. Now, I am learning the importance of home, ideal or not. What matters most, a dusty table or a happy family? A faulty tree or the fact that you have one at all? A merry Marks and Spencer Christmas or an acknowledgement that the first Nativity was full of imperfections too? A powerful king was expected but a helpless baby was born. There was no palace, simply a room with animals. He endured not a victorious life but one of suffering and death.

And all so that we could know He loves us, no matter how imperfect we are.