Do You See What I See?

A few weeks ago I posted about the things I did to decorate our house and get ready for Christmas.  Of all the things I did the most difficult was, of course, getting the outside lights done and placing the electric candles that I've always wanted in each window.  It took suction cups, holders, adapters, timers and a whole lot of patience, but when it was finally done I couldn't wait to go outside at night and enjoy the fruits of my labor.

I put on my coat and walked down to the sidewalk on a cold, blustery evening to stand back and take it all in ...

Pretty, right? 

But do you see what I see?

That the candles aren't lit in the upstairs bathroom window and Mark's office?
Because that's all I could see.

I had my camera in hand, ready to take pictures of my hard work, but was about to walk back into the house in disgust without taking any photos.  It wasn't done.  It wasn't perfect.

Suddenly, it struck me.  Why can I only see what isn't there?  Why do I focus on what I don't have?  Why can't I enjoy the beauty in front of me instead of wishing for things that aren't here?  And I'm not just talking about a few dim bulbs.

I stopped in my tracks and took a photo anyway.  I noticed how the bare tree branches directly above me framed the top of the photo in the foreground.  I noticed how much I liked the lit garland around the doorway (also new this year) and was happy about how the candles that were lit looked in the dark windows.

I did go back inside later and replaced bulbs and re-set timers, and continued to do so throughout the Christmas season.  It seemed that almost every time I pulled in my driveway at nighttime things were never perfect.  Some candles were always unplugged, at least one timer stopped working, bulbs burned out and an entire net light on the big bushes out front stopped working entirely about a day after I put them on the bushes.  From the outside, nothing was perfect.  It was flawed and constantly needed fixing and attention.

There were a few times that everything was perfect, though.  All lights on, glowing in the darkness.  I was tempted each of those times to grab my camera and take another picture, one that was perfect.  I could erase the photo above and not let anyone else see the flaws in my decorations.  I could replace those realistic images with ones that I had virtually Photoshopped with my neurosis.  But I didn't.  I forced myself to not take another single photo of our house from the outside this year, forced myself to accept that it is what it is.

Ironically, we had no such troubles with our inside decorations.  The tree and mantle and stairway lit up each and every day at dusk and the lights automatically turned off every night at bedtime. 

I don't know if you see what I see ... but what I see is a life and house that isn't always perfect on the outside but always just as it should be on the inside.