rule breaking is sometimes okay

so tonight i decided to break my one rule- well my one kind of random and arbitrary rule - no Christmas anything until after thanksgiving.  the reason for this rule doesn't seem random or arbitrary to me- i love Christmas, it is absolutely my favorite time of the year, and i want it to remain special- thus the limits.  let me tell you that my kids hate this rule.  they hate it.  i continually have to remind them in july when they are dying to watch 'elf' that come the end of november, they will be thanking me- you know- for keeping it special. and i remind them that it's my one rule- which completely confuses them- and that i'm allowed, as the mom, to have one rule, well one silly, dictatorial rule anyway.

but.

then life happens.  then you have a week that kind of sucked and another one that is going to be hard too and you kind of need Christmas-time to come early this year.  you need those little white lights that bring so much joy.  and when the sunday school children's Christmas program happened yesterday and i was sitting in church singing silent night anyway, it just made sense. 

so today, after clinic, while the kids were in school, i put up the little white lights while listening to Christmas music.  it was kind of wonderful.  i also baked zoe's banana bread and when the kids came home from school the house was clean and lighted and smelled like warm baked things.  zoe walked in looking bewildered,

"mom, is that......Christmas music i hear?"

"yes it is."

"but....but it's not even thanksgiving!"

"i know.  i decided to be flexible."

"mom i'm soooo proud of you!  can we watch rudolf?"

"oh, don't get crazy now girl! rudolf can wait."

yes.  there it is.  sometimes you need to break your own rules.  sometimes you need to make it happen a week early.  sometimes you need to model flexibility when you preach it all the time.  sometimes it's okay to change it up at least a little, because life changes us up.  we get stuck living into places we didn't expect to be.  we walk into things and seasons we didn't see coming.  life requires us to be flexible and keep going because if we don't bend a little we will break.

i like yes or no.  i like definitive. i like decisions being made.  i don't like maybe, or grey, or wait, or 'i don't know'.  yet often i land here.  again and again i end up with murky and unclear and needing to live with unknowns- that's how it's been and will be with zoe.  that's how it was with jude.  and now with rose.  you think i'd be used to it by now- but i still push for answers.

the answer is the same each time.  my grace is sufficient for you.  and it's true. and it's enough.  but we only really know this grace when we are willing to accept the grayness.  to live in the discomfort of not knowing.

the grace come in our friends and family who are brave enough to walk into the murky with us.  who hold our hands and write words of encouragement and tell us we are not alone.  we are all part of the grace for each other. and it comes in the brightest star ever and the fullness of the moon. and today some of the grace came in the early hanging of sparkly white lights and pricilla ahn singing silent night.  and the words of that song.

silent night. holy night. all is calm. all is bright. 
silent night. holy night. son of God love's pure light. radiant beams from thy holy face.
with the dawn of redeeming grace, Jesus, Lord at thy birth, Jesus, Lord at thy birth.