Chaos to Peace

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Ray and I have enjoyed quiet evenings at home in the last few days. We have been saving up titles of documentaries we wanted to watch, so that has been a favorite quiet evening activity. If you do read and enjoy The Boys in the Boat, I think you will really enjoy the PBS American Experience special, “The Boys of ’36.” We were thrilled to see actual footage of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. And, after getting to know the 1936 University of Washington rowing crew so well, we were especially excited to see footage of the crew in action and even to see them cross the finish line in Berlin!

While we have enjoyed documentaries and old movies, I have been making Christmas ornaments for next year. As you can see, I really mean it when I say I love Christmas! This has been so fun. Last winter I found a box of four dozen very old-fashioned satin ornaments at an antique store for a total of about $5.00. I have been itching to use them to recreate a much-easier version of a couple of long-gone ornaments my mama and I made when I was a girl.

Those old ornaments were ribbon, velvet, and beads on styrofoam. These are much easier to make. I’m simply using pins with pearl heads to attach ribbons and sequins to the ornaments. I make up designs as I go. When I get through with one, I hang it on a weird spiral Christmas tree I found at IKEA a few years ago. That way I can see the whole bunch at once.

These are some of the 23 I had finished last Friday. Ten-cent ornaments can look almost regal against the backdrop of the frayed $20 rug I found at a different antique store a few years back.

And these are the 25 I still had to go. I expect to be just a bit disappointed when I do the last one. I feel sure I will miss the fun.

I’ve been keeping ribbons, pins, beads, sequins, and ornament hooks on a rectangular Christmas tray — beads organized in little plastic containers and sequins and short pieces of ribbon in white oval Corningware bowls. Since I decided to keep the ornaments all white, silver, and gold, I spent some time the other day separating the silver and gold sequins from my old eclectic collection of multi-colored sequins. The tray has been sitting there on the coffee table in the living room for days where it is always ready when I get a chance to sit down and do an ornament — or three.

On Monday morning, Ray and I needed to move the coffee table out of the way. I don’t know how many times we have picked it up and moved it since I started decorating the ornaments. We have done it time and again without incident — until Monday morning, that is. That time we tipped it just enough for the tray and all its contents to do this:

Our mess was a temporary and minor inconvenience. It was a mess, not a disaster. Ray and I worked together to make the mess, and we worked together to pick up the pieces. It’s true that my carefully-organized supplies aren’t so organized anymore, but it’s no big deal.

Some days — weeks, months, years — in our lives feel like absolute disasters, with troubles so difficult we feel as if we will drown in them. We need Someone way more powerful than we are to take care of those kinds of messes. He is able. Nothing can destroy His precious daughters.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities,
nor things present, nor things to come,
nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing,
will be able to separate us from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38

And therefore, when our hearts are breaking, we can say this verse with confidence, knowing that God’s heart is breaking, too.

When I am afraid,
I will put my trust in You.
Psalm 56:3

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