“Honey, do we have to have her again this Christmas?  She shows up every year and you know I do not like her.  I feel uncomfortable when she’s around.” “Again, remind me Brenda, why you dislike her so much?” “Because she’s ugly, that’s why. She doesn’t look normal.  Her eyes bug out and her lips are huge. It’s not just me, everyone thinks she’s ugly. Come on, please let me just get rid of her.  You know yourself she was a mistake from the very beginning.”

Twenty years earlier, our son John was a toddler and fascinated by the bright twinkling lights and pretty decorations on our Christmas tree.  I loved to watch him look at the “big tee,” as he described it, make happy-noises and clap his tiny hands together with delight. While doing my daily chores I would pass through the family room where the tree stood and notice his gaze fixed upon the little red, round, shiny ornaments hung on the trees limbs.  If he reached out his finger to gently touch the cherry red balls I would remind him “we just look, don’t touch.”  He would sweetly grin at me, spat one hand with his other hand and tell himself “no, no.”  I didn’t worry about him looking at the tree because he was a smart little guy and I was certain he completely understood my warnings.  After all, he was a step ahead of the other boys his age and was certain to have his father’s intelligence and his mother’s good reasoning. One evening I was in the kitchen cooking dinner and little John was in the family room watching Big Bird, or so I thought. Suddenly, I heard the sound of fifty glass ornaments clinking against five hundred twinkling lights and the sound of a loud crunch.  Running into the room I saw John standing in front of the wobbling Christmas tree with his mouth open, and his tongue stuck out as if to say “yuck.” In his mouth was half of a red shiny, glass ornament.  He was crying and looking at me for an answer as to what was happening. Quickly, I grabbed the tree and stabilized it to keep it from falling over on him and then grabbed his cheeks and pinched them open. While bending his face toward the ground I tried to make the pieces of glass fall out.  Cautiously, I probed my finger in his mouth to remove the tiny pieces of broken red glass.  Struggling to remain calm I kept saying, “don’t swallow, what ever you do sweetie, don’t swallow until Mommy gets all of it out.” After rinsing his mouth with water several times I finally felt confident the dangerous glass had been removed. Exhausted from a frightful thirty minutes in emergency nursing mode, I began my normal routine of emotionally beating myself up for not being a better mother, and not watching my child more closely.  That night I made a promise to myself, “as long as we have small children in our home we will never have another glass ornament on our tree.”

I kept my promise.  But the next year when we put up our Christmas tree I realized it looked very drab and bare without the shiny red balls.  It was the early eighties and the standard home décor guidelines were; the gaudier the better.  My friend, Diana the decorator, had advised me “in decorating there is no such thing as too much.”  She was a good Christian example to me and a diva of a woman all at the same time.  I figured if Diana said it, it had to be true, and realized we needed a lot of ornaments to properly trim our tree.  I decided to ask her what she thought we should put on our bare Christmas tree, (after all Diana had started a Holiday Decorating business, so who better to ask?)  She knew my husband and I were on a tight budget having just started on staff as Pastors of a new church, so Diana suggested I make bread dough ornaments. “They are so easy to make, and it is a wonderful family holiday project.  My girls and I (who were the same ages as my kids) made them together in just a week.”

I wasn’t particularly crafty and when I was a career woman I saw no need in trying to learn. But since I had quit working and become a new mother, I realized if I was ever going to be accepted into this new community of “stay at home moms,” or the elite society of “Super Women,” I would have to excel in one of the implied categories of importance. I soon learned the categories that would possibly secure me a nomination into their society were; crafts, quilting, toile painting, decorating, education, or exquisite physical beauty (even if augmentations were used.)  I didn’t inherently find myself with any of the necessary categories, but somehow I got it into my mind that the “wonderful family holiday” bread dough project was my winning ticket for nomination by my peers.  Diana invited me to her house and showed me her beautiful hand crafted bread dough ornaments. She was right; they “set her tree to life” and looked easy enough.  She shared her recipe for the dough and some tips of how to made specialty features like the ones she had put on her beautiful, 3D, life-like Santa.

I couldn’t wait to get home and tell my husband about our new family holiday project; one that would make our tree beautiful, safe for the kids (after all it was just bread dough) plus it was cheap and easy.  How could he not get excited about it?  Well, he didn’t get excited, but in his usual supportive loving way he said “Sweetheart, if that’s what you want to do, I’ll do the dishes every night next week after dinner, and you and the kids can make the ornaments.”

Two long months later, which was one week before Christmas, I was still working on the “easy” hand crafted ornaments when my husband asked me, “are we ever going to live normally again, like before these silly ornaments stole you away from me and the kids every waking hour?”  He was right; what was supposed to be a wonderful family project we could all do together had consumed my time and taken me away from my family.  My quest to be accepted by the “girls” had become more important to me than anything else.  Having become disillusioned with being a housewife I found myself longing for a respected position. I missed the promotions and raises I used to receive as a professional woman and was now searching to find value as a “professional mom.” The bread dough project was not bringing me the fulfillment I hoped it would and I was tired of it myself.  I decided after baking one more batch I would stop.  For my final creation I used a cookie cutter to cut out the cutest little angel and added my special touch of dough to form real looking eyes, nose and mouth, like Diana sculpted on her Santa. I knew this work of art would be my star creation and claim to fame.  However, while she was baking, the kids looked in the oven door and began to laugh.  “Mommy, look, the angel has big eyes and big lips, and I think they are still getting bigger.” I prayed “Lord, please let her puffy eyes and lips go down when I take her out of the oven and put her on the cooling rack.”  But they didn’t.  My special creation that was to be my passageway into becoming a professional mom, turned out to be one deformed, Ugly Angel.  Elizabeth, our daughter loved her and thought she was so cute she asked if she could help paint “her big eyes, and big lips.”  John liked her too just because she made him laugh every time he looked at her.  Rick thought she should, at least, be a permanent “conversation starter” on our tree. I was out-voted and had no choice but to hang her on our family Christmas tree.  She was always on there alright, but at the very back, so no one would see her.  Throughout the next week the kids asked “can we show our friends the Ugly Angel,” and I would reluctantly answer “I guess, but I don’t know why you want them to see her, she’s ugly.”  They had so much fun on Christmas day showing their cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents and friends “Mom’s Ugly Angel.”

About seven years ago I was decorating our Christmas tree and decided to throw that Ugly Angel away.  The kids were grown, married, and they hadn’t even requested her appearance for the last few years.  I was certain they would never miss her.  Besides, this was my husbands and my tree now, and I could decorate it just like I wanted it to look. Finally, I would lay the Angel to rest, and I gladly put her in the kitchen trash can. That afternoon our daughter stopped by the house to visit and saw I had the homemade ornaments lying out, “Hey mom, where is that Ugly Angel you made?” “I put her in the trash can and threw her away.”  “No, don’t throw her away, she’s a part of our Christmas and she makes everyone laugh.”  “I know, but I didn’t make her for everyone to laugh at her, I made her to be beautiful on our tree.”  “We all think she is beautiful because she brings us joy, she may not be perfect, but she’s our “special” Angel.  Maybe to you she means something else, but to the rest of us we love her just like she is.”

“Maybe to you she means something else.”   Those words kept ringing in my ears and I knew it was a true statement, but what “else” did she mean to me?  The next morning I prayed about it in my quiet time, asking the Lord to show me why that Angel bothered me so much. Later that day I realized what she represented.  She reminded me of my failure to become like Diana, and many other women I had admired throughout my life.  Over and over again I would see women who I wished I was like and I would try to be like them, but somehow could never fit in their mold.  I began to laugh, laugh out loud, because I saw my self as the Ugly Angel.  I was never formed to function like those other women, and in trying to do so it seemed I had failed.  Our Angel was never meant to be beautiful and elegant like other angels, she was formed to bring us conversation and laughter, and she had done an excellent job of filling her role.  My failure was only perceived in my own mind, and the angel’s ugliness was too.  My Ugly Angel wasn’t a failure of mine, or a roadblock to my success as a woman. She was a guiding source to keep me from hiding the true me by trying to act like someone I was never created to be. Over the years I have had people and circumstances seem like road blocks to positions and fame I earnestly desired.  Now, that I am “more mature” I realize they weren’t road blocks to my success, they were little nudging angles guiding me to live in the roles and positions I was created to be in.  They steered me away from roads that would have caused me to squelch who I really was and miss living to my full potential.  I’ve learned I can’t look to others to find who I am; none of us can but discover our identity from the One who uniquely created each of us.

From that day seven years ago until now, I have learned to walk in a new freedom of being satisfied and accepting myself for who I am. In this new freedom, I have discovered the very positions and recognition I always desired were the ones I have held all along. My most favored titles and badges of fame have always been to be my husband’s Beauty, my kid’s Mother, my other kid’s Mother-in-law and now, my grandchildren’s Grandma GiGi.  These are unique positions only I can fill, ones made just for me. No matter what roles or titles I currently hold, or shall ever acquire, I am most fulfilled to be like my Ugly Angel placed right in the front of our family tree. It is there we both remain not hidden, but free!

Brenda has a true shepherd’s heart with a mom’s touch.  She has been ministering to women for over 20 years as Pastor, women’s leader and Bible teacher.

Most recently Brenda served as the Women’s Pastor of Gateway Church in Southlake, TX.  Her ministry style is warm and passionate, filled with personal humor from her own life’s adventures as wife, mother, professional woman and minister.  She believes that with God there is hope in every situation and by trusting Him all things are possible.  Brenda is passionate about seeing women reach their full potential in God and have fun in the process.

To learn more about Brenda visit:

www.kingdomlifestyleministries.com

Brenda Laurence