The Pain Behind the Pictures

It's Christmas time and things aren't always as Hallmark movie-ish as we'd like. We want them to be perfect and magical and cozy, but the truth is--we live in a sad, hard, fallen world and the holidays are not always what they're cracked up to be. We don't get a pause button for the hard stuff--we don't get to skip over it and see it on the other side of the new year--we carry it with us thru all the twinkling lights and joyous Christmas carols--like we would carry a heavy, ugly backpack into a fancy, black tie event.

Lately, people have been commenting on social media and real life that I've been sharing these perfect pictures of our lives. While I have recently acquired a love for photography--it's purely a creative outlet for me and that it is all. Please don't let my highlight reel of our lives on Facebook and Instagram fool you--it is not my intent to make you think our family has somehow reached a level of flawless perfection. As much as I love a pretty picture, I love an honest heart. Yes, these pictures have been magical parts of our real life--chopping down trees, Christmas concerts and plays with a family that is so very big and so very close, hot coco by the fire and surprise snow days, but there are parts of this season I haven't taken pictures of. To me, these still moments are my way of freezing the happy times I want to remember. I don't want them to get lost somewhere in the painful, sad times that have a way of sticking with us whether we have a picture to remind us or not.

It was a cold, December night 7 years ago when we found out at my birthday dinner that Owen's very good friend died in a climbing accident. It was on Christmas morning nearly 20 years ago that my grandfather passed away. We are coming up on the anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting where 20 6 and 7 year olds were gunned down on a normal school morning. The parents and loved ones of these precious babies are forever marked with the memory of unopened Christmas presents and last visits to Santa Claus.

I live in a world that is no stranger to pain at Christmas time. I know friends battling health issues, some spending their first Christmas without a loved one, others struggling financially, our collective pains seem like an endless list. So, while I'm trying to find and capture priceless, beautiful moments shared between the people I love, there are pictures of hard moments that I haven't taken.

Like when some lab results required a full panel blood screen on my 9 month old. There aren't any pictures of us physically restraining my baby while they tried to find veins for their needle. No pictures of the emotional toll it took on me and him. Thankfully, he is absolutely fine. But, it reminded me of a friend who has to do worse things than this every week for the sake of her baby's health. There aren't pictures of physically feeling the ache of another mama's heart at Christmas time.

I haven't taken pictures of my mother-in-law who is 67 years old and doesn't know who I am due to a disease that has been stripping away her memories and ability to comprehend and experience life for the past 15 years. There aren't any pictures of 2 nights ago--her first time staying at a facility away from her husband. No pictures of us trying to convince him that at this stage of the disease, his immense love and care for her is just not enough. There aren't pictures of the deep pain and loss that we are feeling for all different kinds of reasons. To watch Owen take on the burden of helping his parents who shouldn't be dealing with this in the same phase of life that he is raising his 3 small boys in. The same phase of life that they should instead be drinking in priceless moments with their most gorgeous grand babies. There are no pictures to convey how lonely this is--that we know no one else our age going through this with their parents. There are no pictures of her telling me stories of what Owen was like as a little boy on Christmas morning--because those moments have never existed for me. I will only know her through the eyes that my baby inherited from her and through the beautiful heart of my husband--the kind of heart that tells you it was nurtured and cared for by a good, good mama.

I know it often feels like there is this pressure to attain some magical threshold of perfection. I'm here to say us Barton's and our pretty pictures have not arrived to this place. We have definitely found profoundly beautiful moments during "the most wonderful time of the year," but that is not the only story we are living.

But, I'm reminded that the real beauty of the Christmas story is that there's really nothing glamorous about it at all. It's about a teen mom who gave birth in a barn because she was fleeing from a king who wanted her baby killed. I mean, He happened to be the One who came here to save us--but He didn't do it in some over the top, extravagant way. He came Low. Vulnerable. Helpless. And by doing that--it created a space for us all to fit in. "The weary world world rejoices"--and so it seems we really do have a reason to.

Doesn't that take the pressure off? The pressure to perform or have it all together or to be perfect or grandiose or extravagant? The beauty lies in the fact that Grace stepped down into our world of pain and suffering so we wouldn't have to endure it alone. So we wouldn't have to claim perfection, but that we would just need to offer the world exactly who we are--even if who we are is just a bunch of shattered, broken pieces. It's all we really need from each other and it's the most we have to offer--the truest version of ourselves. Because as they say, the cracks in our humanity are what allow the light to come in and to flow out.

So, whether this is a magical season or a difficult one--the Christmas story has offered a place for you. To come just as you are. Whether it's on a sleigh covered in twinkling lights--or if it's Low. Vulnerable. Helpless.

There is no magical formula or perfect picture for obtaining the ultimate threshold of beauty.

Because broken or whole--

you fit beautifully here,

just as you are.

And as I'm slowly learning,

so do we.

This is my mother-in-law, Ann, on Thanksgiving Day with our Blakey Boy

Whoever I Am to You

If you're reading this--our paths have probably crossed at some point in life. We went to the same high school or college or church or were on the same basketball team or you are friends with my brother or my mom was the best labor and delivery nurse you've ever known.

I'm that brown girl on your newsfeed who had a million kids in one year and posts pictures of them all the time.

To some of you I'm much more than that and to some of you I'm less than that. But whoever I am to you--I hope you can listen to my attempt to be a bridge from one side to the other.

As I look at my newsfeed--it is divided right down the middle. I have seen posts like 'who are these faceless people who voted for Trump and won't admit it' and I think to myself -- if you log onto my Facebook feed they have faces, are proudly admitting it and they are people I love. And I've seen things like 'Waa waa waa we didn't get our way so we're going to throw a fit,' 'get over it, move on, stop making it about something it's not.' 

I have to say, I pride myself on the fact that these extremes are at play. It shows that my life has been enriched by so many voices and opinions and beliefs. That I have white and black and brown and Muslim and gay friends. And I'm hearing all of their voices. I realize, not everyone's newsfeed looks like mine. A lot of them look or reflect mostly the way they personally look and believe. And I'm sitting in a very unique position.

I want to say first, I hear you. I hear both sides. I hear the people who say 'I couldn't vote for Hillary based on policy issues or moral values and I'm not an uneducated redneck' and I hear the people who say 'I couldn't vote for Trump based off his xenophobic, sexist, racist rhetoric'-- I HEAR YOU.

And that's what it seems like both sides are looking for. Just for someone to listen. It's so easy for us to just start spouting or generalizing or assuming. I hear you if you voted for Trump and are saying you aren't a racist, bigoted, Neanderthal. And I believe you.

But, we cannot simply just move on because the election is over now. The election may be--but the effects have only just begun. I was born and raised in The United States. My parents moved here from India well before I was born--so this is my home. And in my home I have, for the most part, been treated with the utmost respect. But, I have also personally been called racial slurs such as sand nigger and towel head. I have had Indian friends who have been called slurpee-maker or been told to go back to their country (even though they were born here.) After 9-11, my brother was confronted in a bathroom in an accusatory way 'what do your people think about these attacks?' His people? He was born in New Jersey. As if my brother and my family wouldn't be devastated, appalled, disgusted, horrified and scared ourselves.

In light of the recent election--I have seen more and more reports of this type of behavior and speech being used, even amongst our children in our schools. Did Donald Trump suddenly make everyone racist? No, he didn't. However, as my cousin pointed out 'it has unveiled a level of bigotry that has always been in our country,' and that is scary, so scary for some. And instead of saying let's move on and be glad and have hope--I think we need to leave space for people. As I've said before, I have lived a very tame life without much hate or racism shoved my way--but I can say I have experienced it more than most of my white friends have. I have walked into a room with my head hung lower because of the color of my skin and the worry that I wasn't seen as an equal. And if you can't understand that--if you do not have the ability to actually comprehend that because you have never been in that skin or those shoes--then you offer an ear. And you sit and you cry for the injustice and you put your arm around the hurting and you stand with them and for them and you let them be sad and you acknowledge their pain and their fear.

Please hear me, I'm not saying be sad that Trump won if you voted for him based on policies or beliefs or moral values or even if you just plain like the guy. I'm not saying let's talk about how horrible Hillary is or how great she is. I'm saying SIT with your neighbor in their pain and acknowledge that this week--people who you can't necessarily identify with, woke up to a scarier world. So be there in the trenches with them. And offer a listening ear. RISE UP when they are too weak to do it themselves and when they're finally ready --champion them to RISE UP WITH YOU! 

The most compassionate voices to me have been from my white friends saying 'I'm sorry I don't understand and never will, I'm sorry you would even have to think that someone could yell racist names at you in front of your 3 little boys, I'm shaking and crying from the injustice of it all. What can I do? Do you have any ideas of how I can bring you -- or anyone else feeling on the outside--in." Those are the most powerful, pure, humbling voices that have been a balm to my fractured, aching heart.

Rise up to racism, sexism, bigotry, xenophobia. RISE UP to the people who call ME a sand nigger--because I'm honestly too freaking scared to do it all by myself. RISE UP for the Muslim girl that was walking to the bus stop and a white man yelled 'it's open season on your kind soon' because I guarantee you she's scared, too. RISE UP for those who have been sexually assaulted and are now afraid because their future president can say things about how he 'grabs p#ssy' and well--if the president of the United States of America can say it--then maybe the guy who sexually assaulted her somehow gets a pass, too.

Trump is here for the next 4 years, at least. I can respect that. He's our future president and I can agree with that meme going around saying we have to hope he doesn't fail because it's like being on the same airplane and wanting the pilot to fail. No one wants that. I hope for wild success under his administration. But, we must not also just sit back with our oxygen mask on feeling fine and safe while the person in the next row is hysterically crying and can't figure out how to put her own oxygen mask on. We don't just sit a row back and tell her she's overreacting. We must get up from our comfy seat and go sit next to her, we must react to her screaming for help--and we must grab that oxygen mask and we MUST help her put it on--we must help her feel and stay safe!

Church friends. Be loud for justice. Jesus was loud for the people in the margins-he hung out with the hooker and the cheating tax collector and the people with diseases no one wanted to be around. Find those people in this world today-the ones who don't feel like they are in the 'in crowd' they are so very near to you-nearer than you may think. They are the black and brown and LGBTQ and Muslim and disabled and poor and so many more. We are called to LOVE as He did and the world is full of broken humans in need of that LOVE right now. Find someone, even if it's just one. Open your arms and your doors and show them the beautiful, scandalous love that you've been shown.

Friends who don't know or love Jesus--I have watched so many of you love the least of these--just as my Jesus did and I have wept to see the way you have put your arms around the hurting and broken. And I am so very proud to call you my friends. What an honor to share space in this world with you.

I am convinced there are far more of us who love than hate.

So, let us ALL rise to the occasion.

Because regardless of whoever I am to you--

I need you now more than ever.


-Lisa Hanchinamani Barton