Making room

It’s the weekend before Christmas and I found myself with my family, in our jammies, surrounded by piles of paper and glitter and glue, toys and games. But none of them were being used (except the ones my two year old kept getting into). We weren’t making any wonderful creations for giving at Christmas or wrapping presents. The glitter was spilled from the back of the drawer, the toys were old. We weren’t in some magical Christmas spirit. We were cleaning up the junk -the drawers, the closets, the craft things. It wasn’t pretty. But it was pretty important.

We moved a few pieces of furniture recently, which lead us to empty out some things. It wasn’t planned, but the opportunity presented itself, along with an unplanned Saturday, so we did it. Junk drawers and toy chests came first. Two bags- trash and giveaway- were carried from spot to spot.

Next came the beast of a job, the one that I almost put off. It was like Monica’s closet in Friends, except it’s an armoire, loaded with toys, crafts, games, everything. You know the kind. You maybe even have one, or something like it. You shudder at the thought of cleaning it out, or at least I did.

I danced around it a bit, hemming and hawing if I had what it took to do the job today. I then finally braved the thought of it. I poured more coffee, corralled the kids into the room with me and turned on the Christmas carols. I pulled the bags close for filling, and hoped I wouldn’t get too lost.

Going through that stuff can be exhausting. Overwhelming. You have to face so many different items and decisions and memories. Looking at bits of your life can be wonderful and interesting. It can also be so disorienting. I went through another desk recently and I swear it felt like I had a hangover afterwards. The time spent looking at pictures and memories from places and times so far removed from my current life that was still fluttering all around me and sometimes climbing on my back. It can feel so strange, beautiful, awkward, disenchanting and delightful to see. (Also, pictures before iPhone and editing was a whole different ball game. It felt much more beautiful than the colored glossy paper manages to display.). Whatever it is, here or there, it is definitely disorienting.

But tackling these collections, facing these stories and scraps can be so liberating. Knowing that what lies behind the doors and no longer letting it be out of control and in total disarray helps create a sense of greater peace internally. So we sometimes have to roll up our sleeves and dive in. To our lives as well as our closets. (But more on that part in a minute.)

Well I’m happy to report, I made it out in one piece. I filled two bags, more trash than donate. I made it through the purple glitter (and also narrowly narrowly missed disasters as I stopped my son from eating said glitter. With all the Christmas cookies, he thought it was sprinkles. Obviously.) I reorganized, I cleaned out. It wasn’t pretty, but it’s prettier now.

The organization spilled over into the craft corner of the playroom, and upstairs into my stationary desk, as organizational projects have a way of doing. We did things well enough to tie a bow on it and call it done, for now.

Honestly though, I felt a little guilty. I mean, it was a beautiful sunny, snowy Saturday before Christmas. We didn’t do anything Christmas-y. We didn’t go caroling or go see the lights or ice skate. You know, all the good stuff I dream of doing. (Remember, the planned vacation!?) We stayed in our jammies and didn’t go anywhere or brush our teeth (well, some of us did.) Instead we cleaned our cupboards. How magical.

As my daughter and I walked up the stairs, putting the last of the things away up that belonged up there, I broached the topic, thoughtfully. I felt guilty, but I also don’t ever want to build a culture in our home of fun being more important than work, or that being together doing anything boring or ordinary isn’t important or special. Because it is. Doing anything well and doing it together is what makes up a life. Always.

But yet. Christmas.

“Honey, I want to thank you for your help today. Thank you for being with me and being relaxed and calm and helpful.” Pause. Breath. “And I know we didn’t do anything too exciting or Christmasy today, but we did do some important things. We got so many things cleaned up and tidied up.” A little more upbeat with each sentence. “And we DO have family coming and Christmas IS in a few days. So this was really good. We did some important things. We made room for Christmas.”

‘Oh my,’ I thought to myself. That’s exactly what we did.

We made room. For Christmas. For celebrations, for family, for new things. We cleaned out some junk. Old stories, old habits, old crafts. We made room for Christmas.

When we could have been buying and seeking new things and filling our time, we were emptying and clearing. It has to be done eventually. Why not first? How can you welcome more of anything- people, experiences, life, love- unless you clear out some space? We all have a way of filling up the spaces that we inhabit. No matter how much we try to let go and clean out, things build up. Decluttering is an ongoing process.

Even in our hearts.

It’s not pretty. But it’s important.

We have to keep going back in, to keep making a little room. We have to reach in, get ready to face a few things, and be willing to let go of things we shouldn’t be holding on to. Resentment, or old glue, bad stories or broken things. We have to clear out the closets for new things, the guest room for people we love, our calendars for celebration.
We have to clean out our hearts for love and what’s possible.

This makes me think, of course, of the most beautiful Christmas story. Mary and Joseph were wandering around the streets of Bethlehem, “And there was no room for them in the inn.”

There was no room available for the couple, in a strange city, and they were wandering around in the dark of night looking for a place to sleep. A place to maybe even bring a new life into the world.

Have you ever had to do that?

I did once. Well, more than once I’ve been looking for a room, but one time it was so close to this story, it’s funny.

There was no baby coming, and I was just a single girl at the time, but I did wander around some street in Israel, looking for a room. It was Jerusalem, though, not Bethlehem. I was nineteen and one of the leaders of a trip with a group of young teenagers. We decided to spend the night in Jerusalem, impromptu. We figured we could find a hostel easily enough. And we could. But none of them had any room. We wandered the ancient cobbled streets, the very ones where Jesus walked, and I kind of laughed at the irony of it all. We were wandering around much like Mary and Joseph, looking for a place to lay our heads, as darkness fell, and we couldn’t find one. The good news is, we eventually did. But there was only one actual room. A room which the boys could share with other strangers. (Not animals, but still.) The girls and I found ourselves in a more private space. On the roof. On the roof, in the old, walled city of Jerusalem. We slept under the stars, with the dome of the rock a stones throw away. It was breathtaking and strange.

If it had been twenty years later, we would have tweeted about it or taken pictures or texted our families. “Sleeping under the stars! In Jerusalem!” But this was pre millennium. Barely a time of the internet, and certainly not any of the mobile kind. My disposable instant camera could never capture the whole picture with its tiny flash, and it was probably full anyway. (I wonder if any of those grainy pictures I saw a few weeks back were an attempt. I should look again with new eyes….but I digress.)

When we read the story of the first Christmas, we know that Mary and Joseph needed a room and they didn’t have one. But it can be easy to forget what that would, or does, feel like. If you’ve ever lost a hotel room or had travel that presented any hiccups, you can remember how this feels. It’s terrible to wonder where you may rest your head at night. It is also so disorientating. (Maybe even more disorientating than going through your old junk. )

This is basic survival.

Looking for a room is humbling.

However, making room is also humbling.

At Christmas we also hear the beautiful song, “Let every heart prepare him room.” It sounds beautiful and peaceful. Like pulling someone close for a warm hug.

Actually making room for someone else or something else can be disorientating and humbling and hard. You have to wade through some things in order to clear space. It can be gritty and messy and full of untethered glitter. It means tackling those places in our lives and our hearts that are filled with some measure of junk and maybe some treasure. It means getting dirty, cleaning out the closets, the rooms. Facing the places where we find broken things and unfinished projects, the things of the past.

Making room for new life and growing a new life in your body is humbling. There’s shifting and moving, your inside actually reorientation, and making room, and that’s just what you can’t see. There’s so much more that needs to happen and change for the new life to come. It is SO humbling. (All the moms in the room raise their hands in an amen.)

At Christmas it’s so easy to think it’s supposed to be beautiful and sparkly and special. No one wants to sit down in front of their messy closet or hearts and do the work of making room.

But where are we ever going to fit the new love and the new joy and the new hope unless we clear out some space.

It can be disorientating and messy. Humbling, yet freeing.

But isn’t it the most Christmasy thing of all, really? To get your hands dirty, to get into the mess, to do the work, to bring something new into the world out of love?

To be in the stable, to be one who makes room. To love and to stretch and to share. All of it. All of it is Christmas.

That’s what the story about the baby boy is all about. A simple stable was opened for him. Room was made, so he could make room for us. He could come into the stable and open up the gates of heaven for us.

Loving is a welcoming and a stretching process. But it is so worth it.

You must make room for new things.

We’ve all been on both sides of this making room thing. We’ve made room for new things, we’ve cleaned out space. We’ve shared our provisions. And we’ve also been taken in and welcomed. Room has been made for us. At least I hope it has. I know it was, at least once, in the stable.

I found a figurine yesterday while clearing out. It was a broken willow tree girl that was supposed to symbolize the hope of the Christmas spirit. I didn’t remember that at first. At first I just found a body with the head broken off. I tossed it in the trash. (Older me on a mission can make these decisions faster. Broken things can’t always be fixed, and it’s okay to love and then let go.)

However, when I got to the end of clearing out the last shelf, I found the angel’s head. I almost tossed that too. But then, by some miracle of hope blossoming in my heart, I figured I could put her back together. I fished her body out of the bag (gosh that sounds awful) and it was then that I saw that she was actually an angel. Or she used to be. Now she was just a regular girl.

She feels a bit like me. Maybe a little broken, but still able to provide value. Still able to give hope and to hope herself. Still believing. Just needing to be uncovered from underneath the pile of junk. That, and a little glue.

I guess that what I’m saying is that when you make room, it’s not easy. But you also might find a treasure worth salvaging. You might find yourself.

You might be looking to make a little room for others and you might uncover some of yourself that was buried and just needs a little glue.

You might not be looking to face it or deal with any of it, especially at Christmas, but you are not supposed to stay buried.

In even tiny moments, you can make space. When you’re face to face with a family member or a messy situation, and you find emotions, expectations, memories, or unfinished business there, you have a chance to make space. To take out some garbage, to let something go. You might make space.

You might find a piece of yourself, waiting, too.

When you make room for the Saviour, Love Incarnate, He always makes room for you too. He pushes aside the junk, slides away the extra, and He sees you, as He made you. Beautiful, lovely and whole, as He intended. Life builds up an awful lot of junk. But He still sees you.

I hope you make room this season – for love, for family, and for a Savior. And that you find He made room for you, too.

It can be a little messy sometimes.
But it is so good.

Merry Christmas. Xoxo