Pondered

Do you ever wish that spy-tech from the movies was easily accessible?

If I could buy anything today, it would probably be the super-high-definition contact lens cameras. There are just so many moments in life that I'd love to capture instantaneously. Sometimes it's an amazing sunset, or the juxtaposition of two buildings side-by-side. Most often, though, it's the peaceful state of my sleeping kiddos, as their little chests rise and fall and their eyelashes do that exquisite and almost imperceptible flutter as they dream. Try as I might, I can’t make my camera do justice to the peaceful scene. As I read through our text for this week, Luke 2:8-20, the words of verse 19 stuck out to me the most: "But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart." This young new mother, surely exhausted and at the same time overwhelmed with love after meeting this tiny human who grew inside her,

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Are there viewpoints out there that I disregard because I've deemed them unimportant?

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keeps encountering reminders that this child is also Divine. I wish we could know her perspective on all of this. Because Jesus’ birth occurred at a time and place in history where women had no voice and were not usually educated, I can't shake the feeling that her perspective on the birth of the Savior, her child, is missing from our Church history, save for a few recorded verses. I wish the thoughts and emotions that swirled through her head as she raised the Christ could have been chronicled. It also raises a question for my own pondering: Are there viewpoints out there that I disregard because I've deemed them unimportant? Are there ideas that the Church has discounted, both now and throughout history, not because they're Scripturally incorrect, but because they didn't match up to the popular narrative of the day? It's a heavy, pointed, loaded question, I know. Especially at a time when the phrase "echo chamber" is being brought up more and more. I’m only presenting this question to be considered, and not to point fingers at anyone but myself. I have to acknowledge and be aware that this might be the case in my own walk of faith. That I look at an idea and say, "No, that's too liberal/conservative/crazy/rational/foreign/familiar to be true," and move on with my day without stopping to pray and examine God's Word to see what the truth really is. Or, on the flip side, that I have an idea and decide it's not important enough to share, even if someone else might be encouraged or learn from it. If I had one goal this Christmas, beyond the excitement that comes with overfilled stockings and the treasure of one more innocent year that my kiddos believe Santa's magic put those presents there, it would be to listen. To attune my ear to listening and really hearing the cacophony of the unfamiliar I tend to tune out. To take a break from my daily normal to listen to the cries of the oppressed, and to find a way to convey to those deemed “less than” that they are heard.

Grace Holt is a thirty-something full-time mommy of three, who happens to have a love for fashion and uses any excuse to wear something shiny. She is loved by an amazing God and an amazing man, and blogs about faith and fashion over at www.livingwithaholts.blogspot.com.