Day 62 - Issue 23
Luke 2:19 NLT
'But Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often.'
As a child, Boxing Day had a very special place in my heart. The frenzy of family, Christmas lunch, bags stuffed with now redundant gift wrapping gave way to a day that seemed so much more spacious than the day before. It was a day to really look over presents and take time to explore and play with them. There was little disturbance, the space was mine.
I think it offers a great opportunity to follow in Mary’s footsteps and ponder the treasure of blessings that is the incarnation. No one minds if I take myself off, usually well wrapped up, and sit in the gazebo in the back garden reading scripture and reflecting. It’s my day for journaling my Advent journey, capturing and revisiting observations from that season. It’s the day of individual and personal conversations as family and friends join me in the gazebo, freshly made coffee in hand. Here we talk nostalgically, reflectively. We enter into true, shared sacred space.
I always imagine that is what the scripture alludes to with its description of Mary’s “pondering” (see NIV). She entered a sacred space of her own making to reflect not merely on the detail and emotions of some event, but to engage with God in conversation about all this might mean, fully knowing that much mystery would remain well beyond the conversation.
In the loft I still have a small box of precious things that bring back memories. As such the memories, like strong spices, are redolent with scents recalling past scenes of importance to my emergence into adulthood. This I imagine is what “treasuring these things” (see NIV) mean. Today I have a mental box of memories from my life. Importantly today as I journal, I will draw back the lens from Advent alone and consider the year past, capturing those memories and milestones. I will quietly pray in some form over each one, as if this carefully packs it away. I draw strength from such reflection. I revisit success and mistakes. I rediscover joy and pain. Yet, throughout I leave space for the mystery of God where things remain unclear.
QUESTION: What has God taught you this year that you will treasure in your heart?
PRAYER: Heavenly Father, thank you for your kindness and patience in leading and teaching me this past year.
