The girls and I have been moving into a duplex this Christmas. Friday we moved from the Lake House, cleaned, and started painting the two bedrooms. Yesterday we finished painting and started moving our stuff in from the RV.
I forgot the burn of spending hours squatting and climbing ladders. It stopped being a good burn about 9 hours into the project. About 16 hours in and I shut down. Today, my body says I must rest.
I can’t talk it into doing anything else.
So, this morning I actually got to my Christmas reflections. This year, once verse sticks out for me that has never stuck out before.
“But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Luke 2:19
Mary was reacting to all the hullabaloo surrounding the birth of her son. The shepherds were going on and on about the angels who had told them where to find the King and told them even what He’d look like (a babe lying in a manager dressed in swaddling clothes). I guess they felt they needed to be really specific otherwise, they might have missed that this King was born in a barn.
I’m sure she was thinking about the angel who first visited her and that she was going to have a child while still a virgin. God’s Son. A Son born to save us all. A baby born to die.
Now, these sheep herders were standing there telling her that the angels were singing about Him. Peace on earth – goodwill toward men. The Messiah has come.
She held the Messiah in her arms. She fed Him at her breast.
I wonder what I would have done? Probably doubted. I think it’s one of my spiritual gifts.
- Is this really God’s Son?
- Did I really see an angel or did I dream it?
- Maybe I can’t remember that Joseph and I really were intimate once and I just made up this whole story to escape my guilt?
- Maybe these shepherds just drank too much?
- Who do I think I am to play a part in all this?
In 2011, I want to learn how to treasure up all these things and ponder them in my heart. I’m tired of doubting. I’m tired of trying to figure God out with IF-THEN-ELSE logic. I’m tired to trying to get my mind stretched around things so I can contain them.
I’m tired of trying to fit God in the very tiny box in my head.
What if I allowed God the room to be God in all my heart, all my soul, AND all my mind?
This is what I am pondering today.
May God be the God of ALL things to you. May you treasure ALL of these things and ponder them in your heart always…
Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!
