My Half Decorated Tree

I absolutely love this time of year!  The lights, the music, the decor...and now I have four small boys who are so excited they can't even stand it!  I have especially been loving the pictures all over Facebook of all the beautiful Christmas trees that people have put up.  We decorated ours this past weekend.  We had broken ornaments and needles all over the floor.  Did you notice anything?  The ornaments only go about two thirds of the way up (when did my biggest boy get that tall?), there are branches with about five ornaments on them, the lights are askew...the list goes on and on.  It is far from perfect.  And I am in love with it.  The tiny hands that helped me decorate the tree did so out of innocence and cheer.    It really got me thinking....we spend a lot of time as parents "parenting".  We ask ourselves how to best shape and mold these little people to eventually be good citizens, and in my case, lovers of God.  As I looked at our far from perfect Christmas tree, resisting my strong "type A" urges to fix and fix and fix some more-I recognized how God is trying to shape ME through having children.  Through my kids I'm SLOWLY learning to be more patient, kind, helpful, and selfless.  And in this instance, less controlling of a situation that really doesn't matter.  Who cares if we have the most beautiful tree?  It's beautiful to my boys, and therefore beautiful to me.