Treasuring & Pondering

Church Christmas Pageant ~ December 1994

When I was a little girl, I had a vivid imagination and an insatiable desire to play house.  Each Christmas season, while the sound of increasingly familiar carols (on records!) played throughout our home, I was transported back 2,000 years. My doll's white blankie became my head covering.  I wrapped one of my precious dollies in "swaddling clothes," then tenderly placed him in the manger (aka the piano bench).

The story was reaching my heart. 

As the years passed and I became a mama myself, I began to understand---at least a little---the doubts and questions and fears and uncertainties Mary must have had when she learned she was going to become the mother to the Son of the Most High.  But despite the unanswered questions and fears, she responded in faith:  "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word."  Luke 1:38

Mary further challenges me in Luke 2:19, following the birth of Jesus:  "...Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart."

This afternoon, as I was putting clean sheets back on our bed, I was considering this very verse when God clearly impressed on my heart, "Nikki, what are you treasuring?"

My heart caught in my throat and I flew down the stairs to---where else?---the internet to look up the definition of the word "treasured."

treas·ured
1. To keep or regard as precious; value highly.

2. To accumulate and store away, as for future use.

pon·dered

To reflect or consider with thoroughness and care

What is it in my life that I hold most precious? 
What do I value highly? 

Better yet, what would my husband and boys say I value most highly?

The truth is, they know---

maybe even better than I do.

Mary took it all in.  Embraced it.  She valued the moments and the days, tucking them all away in her heart for safekeeping.  There's no doubt she pulled them out again and again over the years, reflecting on God's promise.  There were hard, indescribably painful days ahead.  Mary stored up His Truth---the reminders of His grace---and clung to them.
 

I'm taking a cue from Mary today.  Amidst the banner moments and the less-than-stellar, the chosen and the thrust-upon, the expected and the unexpected, my heart's longing and desire is to treasure His promises, treasure His presence, treasure His grace.  Treasure Him.