Pigeonhole

My parents hosted a fantastic party to celebrate my thirtieth birthday this past weekend. It was filled with extended family and friends of the family, including a lovely older lady whom I hadn't met before. Rosalie is a retired nun, so it probably reflects more on her than it does on me that she gave me a sweet little wooden angel statue, even though she generously suggested it was because I was an angel to my family. (I'm fairly sure they'd disagree, but we'll get to that later.) I also got a beautiful photo arrangement my cousin hand made that spells out, "faith," and something in it immediately sprung up tears in me when I saw it. I was a little surprised by my reaction because it was so sudden, and a little self-conscious because it was so deep, and it was right there for all the party guests to see.

Later, when we had returned home and were unloading our things, my husband, Bryan, glanced at my gifts and said, "You sure got pigeonholed, didn't you?" I'm not sure if two gifts out of five count as a pigeonhole, but his words stuck. I've been pigeonholed before.

A great-aunt at the party pulled me aside and whispered with a congratulatory tone that it was so wonderful to see me as I am now, this "giving mother of five," that it was in such contrast to the little girl I'd once been who used to throw tantrums. And it's true, I was a champion tantrum thrower. In fact, I was evidently such a brat that another great-aunt felt it bore announcing to my mother after I'd just sung at my grandfather's funeral, "Tamara has redeemed herself." I mean, I must've really been god-awful-- losing your beloved Grandpa and then singing your ten-year-old heart out to honor him is some serious freaking penance.

I realize that I may still be the slightest bit defensive about that. But I think part of it is that I see that little girl with new eyes now. My mother told me that her angered thought had been, "Tamara had nothing to redeem (you bitch)!" I see that there was plenty to be redeemed, and I see that I wasn't the one who was doing the redeeming. But what I also see is that that little girl was no worse than anyone else-- I was just living it out in the open for everyone to see.

If nothing else, I'm pretty transparent. I don't know why, I can't really help it. I don't keep my heart tucked away to myself-- it's right there on my sleeve, where all the bloody mess can ooze the whole way down to the cuff. So yes, you see a lot of the ugliness when you look at me, if you're paying any attention at all, and I guess that makes it easy to pigeonhole me as a brat or any number of other names. But what I loved about those gifts-- the angel and the photos-- was that they pointed to something else running out of my heart. If people look at me and see any goodness, any faith, any beauty, it's not because I've done a bang-up job of redeeming myself. Lord knows I'm still a mess. It's because little by little, God has been working in that exposed, messy little heart of mine, replacing the tainted blood with pure stock.

I've been pigeonholed as a brat and I've been pigeonholed as a Christian, and both are true of me. I still throw the grownup (and not so grownup) versions of temper tantrums-- it may just be that I've gotten better about concealing them. But when people think of me as being Christian or religious or whatever it is they think that causes them to gift me with angels and faith collages, I hope-- and I believe-- it's because God has been actually, noticeably working in me and changing me, giving me a life-saving blood transfusion.

And I think that's it-- I think that's what made me react so primordially to that photo arrangement. My heart recognized God and His work, and it pulsed with healed blood.