While driving to the Christmas tree lot, Caroline wondered how she would fill the void left by her divorce. Her young son and daughter missed their father, a fact that became more obvious as they kept searching for the perfect tree. At the third stop, the kids found an eight-foot Scotch pine they said was just right. With credit card in hand, she paid the salesman and thanked him for tying the tree to the roof of their car.
At home, the kids tried to help, but Caroline supplied the muscle to untie the tree, drag it into the living room, and wrestle it into the stand. Reluctantly, she drooped stockings from the mantle, dangled stars from the ceiling, and nestled wrapped gifts beneath the tree. While she added the lights, the kids hung ornaments as high as they could reach. Two shiny balls fell to the floor and broke, a fitting reminder of what this Christmas would be like.
Weekends dragged on, and work on Mondays brought welcome relief. Her children needed twice as much of her, and she had half as much to give. Her single income paid double bills. She ached with the newness of her shaken life, lying in jagged pieces, shattered like a glass nativity scene dropped on the floor.
On Christmas Eve, Caroline dressed her youngsters in party clothes and reluctantly handed them over like wrapped gifts to spend the night with their father. How can I celebrate Christmas without my kids? she thought. With my luck, even Santa won’t stop by.
In the empty house, strains of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” tweaked her last nerve, and she threw her fuzzy house slippers at the television screen. Divorce had flipped her world upside-down. She preferred root canals over Christmas festivities.
Caroline didn’t have to spend her holiday alone. It was her choice. She had turned down every party invitation. No more goodwill and holiday smiles, perfect couples, and Christmas carols. She would wallow in her mud-pit of misery, cry till her eyes puffed, and if the mood hit her, scream like Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween.
Curled up on the carpet beside the tree, she watched the Christmas lights blink in rhythm to “jingle bells, jingle bells” playing on the television.
This is too much merriment.
With a kick, she turned off the television.
She breathed in the evergreen scent and exhaled the words: “Help me, Jesus.” It was just a simple prayer, recognizing her need, not with any expectation for an answer.
Up through the branches, she saw something wedged between a branch and the trunk. High, close to the top. What was it? Why hadn’t she noticed it before?
Caroline reached into the prickly limbs and removed a perfectly formed nest, no bigger than a teacup. Threadlike strands lay woven tightly against one other, and the inside was scooped into a cozy haven.
She cradled the nest in her hands, imagining the mother bird and her wide-mouthed offspring. There in the woods, storms must have thrashed their fragile shelter, but it had survived. She thought about hungry hawks perching nearby, while the cheeping infants were safely in their mother’s care. After the fledglings had flown away, woodsmen came with chain saws. When the tree crashed to the ground, the branches still held the nest securely. Even when the flatbed truck bounced along uneven roads, the nest hadn’t fallen. The day she drove home with the tree, the wind whipped the branches with near-hurricane force. Nature and humans assailed the nest from every side, yet it remained safe, hidden in its secure resting place in the arms of the tree. Why couldn’t her house have been this strong, instead of being torn apart by divorce?
After placing the woven shelter back into the treetop, she retrieved her house slippers and sniffled her way to the bedroom. Sprawled facedown across the bed, she pounded the mattress with her fists. Tears soaked through the patchwork quilt.
“Our honeymoon quilt,” she said, wishing for the joy that was forever lost. Tears gave way to moans as she rolled over, seized a pillow, and punched it into submission.
Deep from within, emotions swelled, geysers of anger and despair surging upward. She sat up and tried to catch her breath, but a need for oxygen was no match for the eruption of suppressed emotions. When she opened her mouth to take a breath, the pain burst through the surface of her un-grieved loss. Groans gushed upward, one after the other, each one stronger than the last. From the depth of her soul, grief pushed up and out, her voice wailing in a resonance unfamiliar to her. Afraid that the Halloween scream was on its way, she buried her face in the pillow.
In the next instant, she envisioned the brave mother bird, wings spread over her little ones while thunder roared and rains pelted the nest.
Caroline’s failures as a mother and a wife, her ex’s failures as a father and husband—none of that could shake the security of nesting in God’s hands. Forget the fears, the loneliness, and the creditors. She might be exhausted and discouraged, but she didn’t have to be defeated. When her children came home, their nest would provide them the warmth and comfort they needed. Nothing could destroy their safe haven.
After slipping into her fuzzy slippers, Caroline went to the closet and pulled out her red satin dress. Caroline took a deep breath, then another. She dabbed a tissue at her eyes.
Okay, I’ll rethink my circumstances. I can’t be outdone by a tiny bird.
She thought of her own nest where she and her young ones rested in God’s powerful arms.
Surely God’s arms were stronger than the branches of a Scotch pine.