I love a good Christmas Hallmark movie.

Alright, term “good” used loosely. I will freely admit most of them are not cinematic masterpieces. There are rarely plot twists and you know exactly how it’s going to end. But that ending is ALWAYS happy and I love it. Sometimes you need some happy predictability in your life. Especially if you are a mental health clinician, medical worker, teacher, parent or human alive during 2020/1.

I love that the small town dog walker who is full of Christmas joy, lives in a cute cottage decked out in decorations but is afraid to pursue their real dreams of opening a doggy day care/coffee shop, is almost run over by the big city corporate guy who is only focused on money and had some tragedy around Christmas as a child and is coming back to his hometown to negotiate the sell of the building the dog walker wants for her dream. And they are forced to work together and end up falling in love by Christmas but neither one will admit it until they have talked to their charming and supportive best friend and the guy ends up cancelling his flight home and buying the property for the girl and they live happily ever after. Cue music and pan out while they kiss.

(If this ends up on hallmark next year, I want credit or a walk on part or something.)

That scenario would NEVER happen in real life. For one, a dog walker can’t afford a cottage and all those decorations. And two, people over think things way too much to actually change their whole world that quickly. And love is a choice not just a feeling….

But none of that matters because I turn off my therapist brain when I watch hallmark and just enjoy unexpected love win. It shouldn’t be so surprising or odd, but there is a comfort in my soul when love is unexpected, not obvious (like the plot line) and it works.

It’s because those are the easiest place for me to see God. Hear me out, I didn’t just equate God with Hallmark.

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son ^[2] into the world that we might live through him.” – 1 John 4:8-10

God IS Love. And God is for sure unexpected. The places in my life where I have seen God or felt love the clearest, has been very unexpected.

The cocky, angry drug addicted boy at Capstone who giggles and coos when you hand him a puppy. The drug addicted boy who stole from his grandma when he was high, but passionately defends the autistic resident in treatment. The stranger in Dollar Tree. My husband….

Y’all. Shawn and I couldn’t be more different on paper, and we are both well aware that if we had met at different phases in our life we wouldn’t have taken a second glance at each other. He’s spreadsheets and black and white. I’m feelings and all the grey. He’s orange and red and loud. I’m blue and green and quiet. He’s a yankee. I’m a Texan. Our religious backgrounds are on opposite ends of the spectrum. It really shouldn’t work between us, but it does. He’s my person and we were meant to find each other. He’s the love I didn’t know I needed, which is part of why it works so well.

Mia. The fluffy orange four-legged angel that God sent to me. I had no idea love could exist so strongly with a pet. I have always loved animals deeply. If I had a ranch, I’d rescue ALL the animals.

But, Mia was different. I was depressed and lost when I found her. She was doing flips in her cage at the humane society and I just knew she was mine. I wasn’t even committed to taking on a pet, depression told me it would be too much, until I saw her. I had all these plans of her not being in my bedroom because I am allergic, but about 2 days in she was sleeping on my chest or my head. She was spastic and silly and made me laugh constantly. She was cuddly and loving, greeted me every day at the door. She was connection and affection when I couldn’t find it anywhere else.

When I got Mia, I wasn’t on the best terms with God. I was mad at him, unsure about faith and what it really means… lost in every way you could be. And God saw me, and He came to me in a way I could handle, in a way that was safe in my brokenness…. God showed up in my life as a fluffy, silly, cuddly, demanding, protective, loyal orange cat.

She refused to leave my side when I had surgery. She would sit on the bathtub and drink my bath water. She was with me the first Christmas I was alone. She grew with me from apartment, to house, to bigger house. From singleness to married to mom. She laid behind me in bed with her paw on my shoulder all night after a particularly stupid and painful breakup. She always came when I needed her most. She just knew.

I told God that He could never take Mia or my mom from me or we were all going to have to go together. And I thought we had a deal…. until she passed away back in May. I slept in the floor with her the last night and she very slowly made her way to me and snuggled in the crook between my stomach and my knees- exactly where she slept as a kitten. I let her in the yard the next day and later went to check on her. She was convulsing on the back deck. Where most cats disappear to die by themselves, my baby crawled her way back to me. I held her while she passed. I watched the life leave her eyes.

In the throes of grief (which is just the painful part of love) over the next week, I asked God why he would take her already. The response simply being: You will be ok. Look at all the places you see Me. Look how easy it is to find Me now. I am safe for you now. It’s ok to let her go.

Unexpected love really is the most powerful. Because it can only come from an almighty Creator who loves intentionally, fully, perfectly. In love that doesn’t make sense, God is more clearly seen as the author, the embodiment, of love.

And isn’t that how perfect love came to be? Unexpectedly in a manger, surrounded by the animals, the feces, the poor. God (love) comes unexpectedly, and it didn’t change even for his son. A poor carpenter’s son from the poorest town, birthed to a virgin in a stable.

A humble man sacrificed brutally for all to see.

Love shouldn’t look like torture, blood, nails, screams of pain and death.

But, It did. In the most unexpected and most powerful of ways. Love at it’s most pure, seems to always be unexpected. From a cat to a cross, love transforms the basic to a miracle.

I love when God confirms something. I was already working on this blog piece, and last Sunday in church, our youth pastor, Ben, was preaching on a kind of similar topic. And in talking about some of the unexpected ways God can work, he said God is telling us, “This is what you expect, but this is who I Am.”

When we put parameters on God, we miss Him. He shows up most powerfully in the unexpected places. He shows up in the expected places too, because He is everywhere. But, the fullness of His power, glory and love show up where you least expect them. Keep your eyes, and hearts open.

Merry Christimas!