The War Department
If it be
possible,
as much as
lieth in you,
live
peaceably with all men.
--
Romans 12:18
I was on my
annual Christmas toot: in a tizzy, pitching hissy fits, belching fire, barking
orders, and just generally making life miserable for anybody who stood in the
way of checking off all those perfectionistic items on my Christmas to-do list.
Oh, you'd better not cry,
You'd better not pout,
You'd better not cross me, or I'm
punching you out. . . .
I was mad
that my beloved hung the new garlands at a 90-degree angle. I wanted them at an
87.25-degree angle.
I was mad
that the tree wasn't up yet. Mad that I wasted 30 minutes on an online order
that fell through. Mad at the unsticky stickum on our Christmas card envelopes.
How DARE
the car run low on gas? Who's got TIME to get gas? It's CHRISTMAS!
How DARE
all these other people be out shopping, forming long lines? Don't they KNOW how
BUSY this time of year is?
How DARE
there be dog hair all over the house from our yellow Lab, Sunny Bone-O? Who has
TIME to vacuum? It's CHRISTMAS! Why do we HAVE to have a dog, anyway? Let's UPS
her to Florida!
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
. . . . AND MOM'S GONNA BLOW!!!!
When I get
like this, my beloved calls me "The War Department." He hides in his bunker
until the radiation passes.
The other
day, it was at its peak. My sister was coming over to borrow a dress, and would
have to come into my closet. I hadn't cleaned it since 1973.
I yelled at
my beloved about some pointless detail, slammed the door, then ran upstairs to
take a shower before she came. Afterwards, multitasking: I could clean out my
closet while waiting for my deodorant to dry.
Here's a
sack of clothes I meant to give away eons ago.
Here are
two hobby horses I got for two girls who are now probably in middle school.
Here's a
stack of lost pictures that should have been in a scrapbook long ago.
A box of
stale cookies . . . a tangle of necklaces . . . shoes so old they were
fossilized . . .
WHAT A
MESS! HOW DARE MY SISTER BE COMING OVER TO SEE WHAT A LAZY PIG I AM! HOW PUSHY!
HOW THOUGHTLESS! DOESN'T SHE KNOW . . . IT'S CHRISTMAS?!?
Just then,
a little square of paper fluttered down from an overhead shelf to the crumb-spotted
carpet:
I fell to
my knees. "Oh, Lord, You gave me the greatest role model: my sweet, kind,
loving Grammie, who never said a mean word to anybody, never argued, never
criticized. And yet here I am, acting like her complete polar opposite - and of
all times - at CHRISTMAS!!!"
Grammie had
died at age 95 about five years before. I'd forgotten all about this beautiful
blessing she had written for her eight grandchildren. It was no accident that
it had fluttered down in front of me at that moment.
The Prince
of Peace knew just the right time to show it to me again . . . at Christmas.
Make love,
not war!
Hot tears
of repentance splashed onto the years of accumulated sock lint. "Make me more
like Grammie, Lord, because she was so much like You."
A little
shiver went over me; I hoped it was the last of the irritability leaving for
good.
I rose to
my feet again from the closet floor . . . and looked down to see that there was
so much blond dog hair sticking to my knees, still moist from the shower, that
it looked like I had two blond moustaches sticking jauntily out from my
kneecaps.
Hilarious!
And doesn't a smile feel better than a frown?
That's what
closets are for - when it's time to change.
I giggled,
then picked up two belts from the floor. The buckles clanked together. They sounded
like . . . jingle bells!
I giggled
some more.
That's more
like it. That's what peace sounds like. I should know. After all . . . it's
CHRISTMAS! †
