Looking for the Perfect Tree--and the Perfect Christmas

This year the children determined to go to the mountains and find our own real Christmas tree instead of our usual artificial one that we've used year after year.
So here we are up in Pike National Forest (in the designated Christmas tree harvesting area) looking for the perfect tree.

We looked and looked and looked.

Somehow the envisioned perfectly formed and sprightly fir with thick, dark green branches sitting smiling at us in some beautiful, snowy spot just didn't manage to show up.

We walked and walked and walked.

Of course, the tree had to meet certain guidelines, such as that the trunk could be no more than 6 inches in diameter. So when we found a few trees that might have worked, the trunks were questionably thick.

The experience was becoming a little less than what the children had dreamed about!

We realized that we were used to the perfectly symmetrical, thick, green Christmas tree we've used for years, but it was artificial.

We wanted something real. 

We walked along thinking about this and discussing it. So often we set ourselves up for disappointment by getting used to the artificially perfect plastic Christmas trees--and life experiences and people who wear masks. We swallow the artificial advertisements,  believe the hype, and set up unrealistic expectations.

Going through this part of the forest was pretty dream-collapsing--and pretty sobering.

There are a lot of times in life when we go through experiences that are like finding a barren, rocky mountainside strewn with beetle-eaten remnants of pines when we were dreaming of a lovely fir set in a snowy hillside.

We dream of that perfect marriage partner, and the perfect church fellowship, and the perfect job, and the perfect family, and the perfect Christmas.

And when we get married, or join that church, or find a job or start raising that family (or can't find a spouse to do it at all), or decide on plans for how we're going to celebrate Christmas this year, things usually don't turn out quite the way we were dreaming at all.

Everyone was noticing how nice certain evergreens looked from a distance, but when you came right up to it, it wasn't so great. 

Up close, they were extremely disappointing--like how we people sometimes look to each other when we start getting to know each other apart from job settings where we look professional, and church settings where we look pious, and family settings where we look classy--all from a distance. 

 We probably all know some "perfect" family or couple or business person or church pastor or layman that looks like they have it all together--from a distance.

Sometimes the trees we rushed to so hopefully looked pretty pathetic up close.

And some looked good up close because it was actually two trees standing together!

By itself, one of the trees was too spindly or not very symmetrical, but together, like a husband and wife whose strengths balance out each other's weaknesses, they made a beautiful sight to those looking on.

We realized, after about an hour and a half, that we were possibly going to have to make do with something a little unsightly, realizing that in Pike National Forest we just weren't going to find the perfect tree.

And then we found one!

Not perfect, of course, but very acceptable.

Like that girlfriend or boyfriend or spouse or church or job or friend who we realize is not any more perfect than we are, but who is real, and honest and open and good, a real prize,

one to be chosen, and kept, and cherished.

We were so excited!

Rose, Jonathan and Timmy all took a turn with the axe, and soon we were on our way back to the van.

Father in heaven, teach us to value what is real, although it may not be perfect.

Teach us to be open and honest with one another in love and humility.

Teach us to forbear and forgive others when their branches are sparse on one side, their needles are too brown,  or their trunks are not the right size.

Teach us to value what is real over what is artificial, to value truth over appearances,

and to keep seeking for the good in others that can be found if we will keep patiently looking for it.