An empty box

An empty box
by
Chaplain Kathie
Right about now, there are decorated trees with lots of boxes under the branches. The only one sure of what is inside the box, is the person who wrapped it up. Everyone else is just guessing. Audio experts can shake the box, listen to the sound and then take a pretty good guess of what is inside. They are used to manipulating sound, so the pure sound is easy for them to detect. The rest of us will pick up the box, judge the weight compared to the shape and then try to figure out if this is the year we finally get something we want. Did the people we love finally listen to us? Do they finally get "who" we are and what we like?

There are many people this year wondering how to pay their bills, so gifts won't be measured by how much they cost but by the time we take to be with each other. There is something very special about this time of year when we can get past the guilt of not buying stuff, not sending Christmas cards out to people we never hear from otherwise and not competing with the neighbors to out decorate our house.

Generous people go out of their way to help someone in need this time of year and they know what this time of year really means when they actually practice the love Christ talked about.

For babies, this time of year means one thing. They are too young to understand the reason for Christmas, or why that big green thing shows up with all the lights on it then goes away. Santa is a scary guy their Mom and Dad hands them off to. They surely don't know why all the pretty boxes are on the floor instead of being opened the way all the other gifts are opened as soon as they show up. All they know is on Christmas morning, they get to play with the boxes after the stuff has been tossed aside.

Parents watching their baby play inside the box wonder why they bothered to spend the money buying what they put inside of it. The bigger the box, the more fun they have. Their imagination runs wild as they giggle. It's almost as if they know something the rest of us don't.

Life is like a baby on Christmas morning. Each one of us are sent here with an empty box to fill. Not to fill with things but with our lives. We are all born with a purpose as different as the size of our boxes. Some have very small boxes to fill. Once filled, they get to go home to God. Some have huge boxes to fill and if they follow where they are pulled to go, they fill their boxes faster than those who go their own way.

If you need examples of this, just pick up the Bible someday and flip through the Old Testament. You'll see what I mean all the way down from Adam. Every single person considered to be central in the telling of God's actions messed up along the way. Christ is the only one doing it the way He was supposed to all along. His box filled up in 33 years. It overflowed into other boxes for the last 2,000 years.

Some people are selfish. They always want to find a way to take out something from someone else's box. What they can get for themselves is all they live for. These people end up stuffing their boxes with things that weigh down their box and their souls. Other people keep doing for other people always wondering how they can help while their own box gets filled slowly. Or so they think because they can't see their deeds could very well be what they were intended to do here on earth.

When we do things we believe we should do, we tend to have the impression that if it is what God wants from us, He'll make it easy to do it. The problem is, He doesn't. Going back to the central figures in Christianity, things didn't usually work out for them and their endings were far from happy. The early Christians were hunted down and murdered. They didn't give up because things were not good for them. Because of them, millions of people around the world carry the love of Christ within them every single day of the year and not just this one day.

Some people will look at the boxes they filled and think "what a waste" of a life. They judge the weight of the box and the sound they cannot distinguish. The only person knowing what is really in the box is the person who wrapped it up.

For combat soldiers, their homecoming is like a closed box. No one really knows what's inside of it. They can pick it up to see how much combat weighed on the veteran, but they will never know where the weight is coming from. They can shake the box but the sound they hear is never the same as the veteran hears. If the box is beaten up, they think the veteran is. If the box looks fine, the believe the veteran is as well.

Too many times the veteran can't remember what he put in the box. All the times he did something with compassion, helped a friend and held out a hand to stranger. He can't remember all the good he did because there was so much bad going on all around him. He forgets the reason he wanted to serve in the first place because of how hard it all was.

When the people in his life back home begin to rip off the top of his box searching for the person they used to know, the disappointment is clear. The veteran feels it and then blames himself for changing. Determined to be himself again, he does whatever he can to kill off the guy became. He drinks or does drugs to numb the stranger back to sleep. When everything has failed, they settle on pushing people away from them so they don't have to pretend anymore. So they don't have to care anymore. So they don't have to explain or apologize for what they don't even understand.

This Christmas if you have a veteran in your house, do yourself a favor. When you look at the box they came home with, don't try to guess what's inside of it. Don't wonder how much it costs since they have the receipt that keeps getting higher. Don't wonder why it weighs so much. Wonder how you can help them make it lighter. Don't expect them to come out of the box the same way they went in but help them become better than they are now.

Don't judge them if they are suffering. Trying to blame them for what doing the "right thing" did to them won't help anyone but will harm everyone. Don't stop believing they were doing what they were sent here to do and start believing maybe what you were sent here to do is help them. See, you have your own box to fill. Can you think of a better way to fill your box than helping someone you love be happy again?

Sunday as you open the boxes, finally seeing what was inside, remember that you can finally see what's inside of someone you love if you have the patience to wait until it is time for them to open up to you. Let then know you'll be there when they are ready just like the boxes waited under your tree. Just be ready to listen when they want to talk. Listen for the sound of their voice and not yours. Then you won't have to guess what has been inside all along.