ornaments.

Tis the damn season.

Once again I am blown away by the graciousness of God. 

In the earliest days of the separation from my husband, when the grief flooded my system in waves, the only familiarity in my new home was a pine tree I picked out with my dog from a local tree lot. Decorated with my new ornaments in my new apartment. I clung to the serenity brought by these ornaments. The way the lights lit up the red and gold plastic balls and created a warmth across the bare room that allowed me to fall asleep each night. A guiding light. A simple, but luxurious joy. I didn’t have much else, but damn if I didn’t have the best tree.

For cutting moments, I would actually feel lucky amidst experiencing some of the loneliest days to the backdrop of the most joyous season.

Three years later, almost to the day, I was selling all the things I tirelessly built my post-divorce homes with in preparation to leave it all behind and move across country. I agreed to sell someone a few things for cheap because she said she just moved to this city with whatever could fit in her car. I admired that because I was getting ready to do the same and wanted to help anyway I could. As it would turn out, she was actually freshly separated and facing a similar situation I found myself in all those seasons ago.

New journey. New life. Building a new home out of virtually nothing. All around the Holidays.

As we stood by her car, stuffing in the rug she had just purchased from me, I noticed a Christmas sign in the front seat of her car. She had just gone to Home Goods before coming over, she said. For a half second, I listened and knew. Out of everything to be given away from my apartment, out of every piece of furniture or decor that stitched my homes and soul together, those Christmas ornaments were the only sense of peace I could give her because I knew what they had given me in the beginning.

When I told her to just take them, along with a tree skirt and matching stockings, she started crying. Right there in the middle of my hallway. She told me, with unshakable faith, that God said this was going to be hard but He was going to put people on her path to help her in this season, on this journey. I was that person for her and I was going to find my people, too.

I’ve never witnessed a greater sense of connection to the Oneness of it all, than in that moment.

Only He can bring two strangers to tears over His love, grace and compassion when it feels like only darkness surrounds you. Only He can bring two strangers together that understand the magnitude of something as simple as ornaments make when every single piece of your life falls away. Only He can remind us how far we’ve come and ask us to keep going with the promise of placing people on our paths to carry us along the way. 

To the person that understands the blessing of a box of ornaments from Target, I praise you.

May you find your people to keep going.

And may you find some joy in this damn season.