4) Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves
5) Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs
6) Were entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character
~Steps 4-6, The 12 Steps~

Last night we watched It’s a Wonderful Life. It’s one of those favorites people have that they watch around Christmastime. The kids don’t like watching it so we watched it by ourselves. I think you have to be more of a grown up to appreciate this movie. There aren’t very many kids in it for one and two, kids don’t really understand grown up problems. Most of this movie is about problems that grown-ups have to go through.

I remembered Donna Reed’s character, Mary, and that she’s almost too perfect. But then watching it I remembered again, and confirmed in my mind that she indeed was too perfect. The more I watched the more upset I became, not visibly, not terribly. I was upset because this was obviously not a movie about an actual person. This was some man’s rendition of whatever their fantasy, whatever their version of perfect was.

She is not deterred when he forgets their fun night. She doesn’t throw him out when he’s unimpressed by his own imagination of lassoing the moon and pulling it down. She readily surrenders their interrupted honeymoon and willingly hands over the money that was supposed to be only for them. She wishes for a house and then works by herself to transform an old mansion into a livable home space. All this and more.

And when he comes home late, or is rude or aloof for the umpteenth time, she greets him at the door with loving excitement. She is dressed, smiling, busy with the kids, with not an inkling of stress. That’s how I knew that she couldn’t be real. I’ve known too many moms and heard too many stories. And Mary just takes it like a saint. She’s this long-suffering woman, who minus smashing the record, shows no signs of suffering.

There are vices in our lives that fall away easier than others. And then there are others, I think for me it is just this one, that wrap their tentacles around your innermost being and are so entrenched and so entwined that it seems impossible to be completely free of it, to shed it, to be rid of it. I wondered last night why this bothers me so much, why this particular thing, when I see it, stirs up pain, shame, and anger and whatever else.

Because I want to be free of this. This bitterness or grudge that comes not because someone else wasn’t the ideal for me, but because I wasn’t the ideal for them. I had needs, and needed to be loved, and this was all just too much. But that’s not all, all of that is forgivable, understandable, erased. I told the kids, in an impromptu devotion I gave before they opened their presents, that something was different on their tags.

I didn’t write Santa when they were all little. Christmas was about Jesus, yes, but also because I didn’t want to give Santa credit for the work. These gifts under the tree were a sign of my love, of the love of me and their dad for them. Mom and Dad. Dad and Mom I would sometimes switch it up so as to be honoring. Sometimes I’d eventually write Santa to be fun. But what I wanted them to know was how much we loved them.

This year I signed the gifts from “Love”. The Bible says that God is love, and in James it also says that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning (1:17).” All these years, I have not been love itself, as much as I was filled with it. I have only been a conduit of what was first bestowed to me. God is the one who truly loves them.

It went something like that. And separate from that but somehow related are the thoughts I continue to have about rewards. I wanted rewards for being good, but that’s only because I thought I deserved them. Even in holiness I thought somehow that the reward on this earth was somehow a good marriage, good children, lives that bear fruit from the work you’ve poured into them. But the more I go on I see this isn’t the reward.

God himself is the ideal and reward. Not the end of pain and trials, or the cessation of labor. All those things will be wonderful too. But he is the only one who lasts, and because I am in him I will go on and live forever. I will know completeness and perfection and healing in Jesus even as I have already known it. They keep trying to tell me this, that this is how you love freely. I am getting it now. I think I’m getting it now.