Unpacking old boxes

Six days ago I sat on the floor and brushed the dust off of an old box that I haven’t seen in years.

It’s been raining and I’ve been sitting outside on the steps and staring at the water falling from the sky. Being home is a mix of emotions that I never can quite get a handle on.

This house is where my in-laws lived when my husband was a baby. Jubilee helps me hang the ornaments on the tree and I teach her not to tear them off . I wonder how many times my mother-in-law did the same thing with her boys in this place and about all of the memories that were made inside of these walls.

I brushed the dust off of the box and opened it up. It was full of love letters and hand written notes and old photographs. A graduation tassel. Old movie tickets. Things I kept from my senior year in high school.

I sat for an hour reliving that year and the one after it. Reading letters that described every date that any of us ever went on and featured lines from the latest Lil’ John and the Eastside Boys song.

I found memories in that box that I’ve wanted to forget. The year my parents got divorced. It was the same year I never went to school and no one ever knew. The way I used to steal my mom’s cigarettes and sit all day on the beach smoking them and pretending like the pain wasn’t ripping my soul open. The year after that was the year I learned that love could knock the wind out of you and leave you bitter. The year I vowed never to love anyone ever again. The night I laid in the cool dirt after they plowed the fields and stared at the stars until I couldn’t cry anymore and I only felt empty. I remember that night so well because after that I couldn’t cry anymore for months. That was the first time I learned that being numb is so much more awful than being hurt.

I got my first tattoo and remember the needle reminding me that I could feel something. Those were the days that we pretended like our hearts weren’t broken and that nothing could hurt us. We were invincible and 18 years old.

I wonder if you know me as that girl or if you can’t imagine me being her.

The only difference between me and her is the love of Jesus. 

I spent so many afternoons in Peru talking to girls who were fighting the darkness. All of the memories in my box were transformed into advice over and over again. It’s why one of my favorite texts from the Bible is the one that talks about getting beauty for ashes. Because I burned my life down around me and stood in the ashes of what was left behind before I could see beauty in anything.

I emptied the box out and went through every letter and photograph and remembered. And then I threw it all into the fire. (can’t have lingering pictures of myself wearing next to nothing and drinking liquor from the bottle now that I’m a Mom.)

I almost want to erase that last sentence so you don’t know I did that. It would be easier to pretend the box never existed and that those things never happened and that I was always just who I am today. But what would happen if we all burned our boxes and never told anyone the story of how we made it through? What if we never exchanged our ashes for beauty and learned what that meant? What if we never talked about drug addiction or rape or abuse? Those things would continue to tear us apart if we didn’t raise our voices and take others by the hand. Usually the hard things to say are the most important things to say. And sometimes the most sacred words aren’t words at all but the motion of an outstretched hand to someone who is staring at the blood on their knees and unsure of how to get up off of the pavement.

I burned the pictures and watched them turn into ashes. The picture of me standing in my mom’s kitchen the second night I ever did drugs. The weekend she spent out of town and came home early to beer cans scattered in her driveway and teenagers sleeping in her bed. That box was sealed up for years and going through it was like cleaning old spiderwebs out of the corners of the walls. Looking at myself in those pictures was like looking at someone else. Someone hollow and dead.

And today, I celebrate the new life that I was given. I celebrate the God who chose to become a man and came to the earth as a baby and died on a cross. When I wake up in the morning, before my feet hit the floor, I start a conversation with Jesus that lasts all day, that I dream about at night, that is never ending. I love Christmas because of the lights and the trees and the gifts. And I love Christmas more because all of these things, these good gifts that I love, were given to me by the One whose birth we celebrate. It’s all about Him and because of Him and from Him. 

Because of Him, my box is a gift. That’s just the thing, beloved. I realized it sitting on the floor surrounded by middle school notes written with gel pens. Ashes for beauty. It’s not a gift for me, it’s a gift for me and for you to give to someone else. The stories of redemption and testimonies of how God brought us out of the dark, the hardest and most painful moments of our lives, the things that could have destroyed us. Those are gifts for us to give to the world as a hand reached out to the ones who are still wading through darkness, unable to find the way out on their own.

That’s what Christmas is to me. A moment that stands out in all of history as the day that all of the stories in everyone’s boxes were retold. The day we celebrate the birth of the One who changed everything.

Before we left Peru this time, I translated for a girl who flung her box wide open and told her story of being abused and her journey of healing to a group of girls who knew the clutches of abuse well. And I think that’s the most beautiful thing we can do. Fling our boxes wide open and let our stories heal the world.

Your story may just be the most beautiful gift you ever give someone. Don’t seal your box closed. Don’t let your story go untold. Brush the dust away, rip the tape off and peel the flaps back. And never forget, dear one, that your story has been retold by the One we celebrate this week, the King of Kings. The Alpha and the Omega. The One who calls you His beloved. So fling your box wide and let Him heal the world.

With messy hair and wild grace,

Ellyn