Declare

And her heart grew three sizes that day…

By Kathy Deters

Psalm 96:1-3 New International Version (NIV)

Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples.

Christmas decorations are so tacky. Animatronic Santas wiggling their hips, dancing dogs barking “Feliz Navidad,” and thousands upon thousands of twinkling lights! I mean, what could any of that possibly have to do with the birth of Christ, am I right? It’s the crass commercialization of a deeply spiritual season. Plus, it’s a heck of a lot of work to check all those thousands upon thousands of twinkling lights.

So that’s where I found myself not so long ago. As a little girl I had enjoyed the ritual “hanging of the greens” traditions that I had shared with my parents: sling shotting gobs of silver tinsel on an artificial tree (and I do mean sling shotting — we used an actual sling shot), setting up the lighted plastic nativity in the front yard, and carefully plotting out a Snow Village that probably could have passed muster with the most detail-oriented city engineer. But that particular year was different; I was exhausted and, dare I say, a bit cynical. I was a young mother with a tiny child in a new home and a new town, with a relatively new job and virtually no free time and very little money to spend. Having just moved in late October, we were scrambling through boxes for dishes before each meal, our windows were bare of blinds or curtains and there was a vast pile of mud and weeds where a yard should be. Needless to say, putting up those “tacky” Christmas decorations was not high on my list of priorities.

But it wasn’t just the lack of time, money or energy; those are all certainly worthy excuses. It was that I, like so many others in our society, had come to view this visible representation of holiday spirit as meaningless. So I made up my mind that I’d put up the Christmas tree at the last minute, mostly for my baby girl’s sake, and that was it.

But a few days before Thanksgiving (yes, I said it, I am one of those who starts contemplating Christmas in November), a voice in the back of my head, or perhaps more accurately, deep down in my heart, urged me to reconsider. I found myself with a quiet Saturday afternoon, so I decided to venture down to my unfinished basement and sift through boxes in hopes of finding my few meager Christmas ornaments.

Now for readers who have ever sat through a TV Christmas movie (yes, I’m a sucker for them), you’re probably expecting that at this point in the story I stumble across some beautiful heirloom ornament passed down in my family for generations; a choir sang, a light shone down as if from nowhere, and my heart immediately melted. Nope. None of that. It was something quite different, in fact; what I discovered when I reached my basement and walked toward the dark corner where my decorations were stored was that my brand new water heater was leaking gas. Needless to say we evacuated our brand new house, called the fire department and had a brand new water heater installed.

On his way out the door the plumber commented, “Good thing you came downstairs.” It was, without question, a good thing I came downstairs. It was an unfinished basement being used only for storage; who knows how much time would have passed had I not gone down there looking for my “crass” Christmas decorations? Maybe that voice in my heart telling me to go unpack those decorations was guilt, honoring a family tradition. Perhaps it was intuition, sensing that something might be amiss. Or maybe it was something more; maybe it was a higher power.

Just as that lovable Grinch’s heart grew three sizes, so did mine that day. We are each called upon to sing to the Lord, and praise his name . . . to declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples. I covered every corner of my home in those twinkling lights that year, and continue to do so to this day. It’s no longer about honoring tradition, impressing guests or trying to recreate the pages of some magazine. It’s about declaring the joy and gratitude that’s bursting in my heart — too much to be contained.