Treasures In Our Heart

From Guest-Blogger Brittany White

“You’re going to go see Christmas lights. I need you to put on your shoes and coat and wait quietly. Your brother is too little to go. Please do not tell him where you are going.”

As a five-year-old, I can imagine how powerful it must have felt for her at that moment, for she immediately went downstairs and told him she was going to see lights and that he would not be attending.

My son, Jack, went into a tantrum, and later that night my “very sorry” daughter and I sat and looked out the window as her sister went to see Christmas lights without her.

As her tears began to dry and the weight of her actions lifted, I started telling her of the importance it was for a woman long ago to treasure in her heart a secret God had given her.

“An angel came to Mary, a young, unmarried, and dependent girl, and told her that God was going to give her Jesus, the Savior of the world. Do you know how she must have felt? Excited, nervous, maybe like you, she wanted to burst from the seams and tell the world. But she didn’t make that choice. The Bible says that Mary kept all the things the Angel had told her in her heart and thought about them often.”

For a brief moment, we sat in the warmth of one another. Then as youth so conveniently allows, my daughter leaped from my lap to face me, the cold air creeping from the window met my chest.

“Why didn’t she tell everyone?” She asked.

“Do you remember what happened when young Joseph told his brothers about his coat and his dreams?” I responded.

She thought back and remembered a project she had completed in preschool where she made a coat of many colors with different pieces of fabric. She told me that the brothers had gotten angry and jealous and hurt Joseph.

I nodded as she returned to my lap and looked back out the window at the lights in our front yard ready to listen. “Mary didn’t want to hurt or confuse others who wouldn’t understand and she didn’t want to be hurt herself. She had a long way to go because babies stay in a mommy’s tummy for a while and she and her soon-to-be husband, Joseph, had some things they needed to figure out. So she kept it in her heart. Do you know what happens when we keep good things in our hearts?”

“What?” She asked in wonder, having now completely forgotten the Christmas-light adventure she was missing.

“God grows those dreams and promises and we can talk to Him about them in our heart any time we want! We ask God to bring the right friends in our lives to help us and we trust Him to guide our feet and can focus on what He’s saying. The busy world around us sometimes doesn’t offer helpful opinions, and when we keep good things in our heart while we journey with God we don’t have to worry about letting others down and can change more easily when we discover God’s will is different from ours. Do you think Mary wanted to have a baby in a stable with all the animals?”

She laughs as I continue. “Right! Mommies don’t want to have babies in the hay! But Mary trusted God and brought close friends and family into her secret. Now, how do you think the night would have been had you gotten your shoes and sat and waited?”

I felt her take a deep breath as her little voice began. “I would have gone with Cora to see lights and Jack would eat ice cream and be happy with you. I would not have cried.”

“No, you wouldn’t have. But you also wouldn’t have been sitting here with me getting extra snuggles either,” I tell her as I squeeze her closer to my heart. “Sometimes we don’t keep things in our heart as Mary did, but that doesn’t mean God loves us any less or that He won’t trust us with other good dreams as we grow up. Because of Jesus, sorries, and forgiveness, we get another chance.”

She returns my squeeze with a hug as we watch her sister pull up with her uncle and cousins from their neighborhood adventure.

“Cora’s back! I’m going to tell her that Mary kept a secret in her heart — but I won’t tell her what it was.”

“Oh no, baby, the whole world knows now. Jesus was born! You can tell her the whole secret.”

Remi runs out of the room as my husband opens the front door and I hear her yell out to her sister that she had something important to tell her. How beautiful it is, when a good secret comes to fruition, in God’s perfect timing.