Every Christmas my family gets a real pine tree to decorate and celebrate the season.
My husband would go out and handpick each tree ensuring its shape of perfection. This year, we were given a tree from a family friend. Unlike other years, this tree was imperfect; extra long sparse branches. But even in its imperfection, this tree’s life fulfilled its final purpose of bringing joy to the hearts of our children, who cared nothing for its imperfection or even noticed.
When Dad entered the house with this Christmas tree, their faces lit up with excitement, they bounced up and down off the floor and the screams of enthusiasm skyrocketed.
Dad trimmed and shaped the tree, and we decorated it with white Christmas lights, coloured ornaments, a brightly lit star and candy canes, which are probably going to all be gone by the time Christmas day gets here. Each of the children, youngest to oldest took turns decorating the tree. This imperfect tree now occupies a very prominent area of our living room, taking center stage and drawing all of the attention to itself as its brilliant colours radiates joy to our hearts.
As people, we are plagued with different imperfections, whether or not they are physical. It doesn’t matter a person’s inward or outward imperfections. Each of us plays a vital part in the life of another.
We celebrate our achievements and successes but if we could overlook the imperfections in others and even our circumstances, we may just be able to jump for joy and celebrate the great moment to arrive and celebrate what we could bring out of an imperfect situation or person. That imperfect person may be the answer to your need, the solution to your problem, the key to your success or the reason for your celebration.
Know someone who may be physically impaired, walk or talk funny? Don’t discard them due to their outward imperfections, if you take the time to know them and overlook the obvious, perhaps you may see the beauty in that individual as you take the time to find it.
We went against the norm, our perfect pine tree and looked at what we could do with this tree. We could have discarded it and go out and purchase another with dense branches, but we decided to give this tree a chance and worked with it.
How much more people? We should be willing to give others a chance to shine, as well.
