A Quiet Place 2…

I told my children at the beginning of this year that I felt a quiet taking place in my heart. A call from God to step away, to ponder more, and talk less.

In the midst of this conversation with them, I told them that maybe at the end of this quiet journey, I would write a book and call it “A Quiet Place.”

They both, quickly and without hesitation, said “NO, MOM. You cannot name it that!”

“Why?!!” I innocently asked.

“Mom, you cannot call it “The Quiet Place” because that is the name of a very well known horror movie! That would be weird!”

Ugh. Whatever.

So, I will just call this post, a tag along from my last post, “A Quiet Place, 2.”

Leave it to my kids to completely sabotage my grand book name idea.

Do our kids ever stop doing this? (just asking for a friend) ;)

In the meantime, as I sat down on my bed, made a cup of hot tea, shut my door to write this post…

My 20 year old college boy comes in MY BATHROOM and starts shaving with his louder than loud electric razor. I mean….what is happening here?

My quiet place has dissolved, along with his chin hairs.

Back to this post….

Way back at the end of 2021, well only a few short months ago, I came across some words that became an etching on my heart.

Luke 2

“So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.”

“But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.'“

The last few months, I have felt like Mary.

I decided to pause and ponder. Like, really ponder. Ponder the moments. As much as I possibly could.

It has not been easy. It takes practice and discipline with a capital D.

If we don’t stop and take notice of what is taking place right when it is happening, we miss the treasure of it.

A friend of mine has a daughter that graduated last year from high school. I noticed that she would go off and sit away from everyone else as she watched her child play sports. I asked her one day why she did not sit with the rest of the crowd as she watched her amazing athlete play.

She said, “Because I want to take it all in. I don’t want to miss a thing or be distracted. This is her senior year….”

Lump in my throat, I slowly nodded. Yes, yes, I understand.

Our world is fast paced and it will not let us pause and ponder. It insists that we keep going, and going, and going, and going.

Rapidly snapping pics and uploading them to social media, looking at our watches as we anxiously await the end of our work day, counting down the days until we can go on vacation.

But…what about this moment? What about treasuring the very place we are in. Whether it is hard, or happy, or sad, or exciting, or excruciatingly painful…

What if we were to just sit in that place and take it all in…because surely, God has us here for such a time as this.

The traffic that annoys us, the slow people that make our life crazy when we are in a hurry…

What if we decided to take it all in. To find the treasure in that moment.

Mary, the Mother of Jesus, as young as she was, knew something that we often never learn.

She knew that this time would be fleeting. She knew that her Son’s life would not always be this simple. She knew that there would come a day…when she would do anything to be back in that humble, dirty, stable.

Let me be clear about something though. Our lives do not have to be quiet all of the time. I get it. We live in a lot of noise, and people, and kids.

It is the heart I am referring to. A quiet heart.

We can ponder and treasure even in the midst of noise.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2

There it says it right there. We do not have to conform to what the world expects of us. The loud. The busy. The non-stop go, go, go.

Mary sure didn’t. She did not get caught up in the wise men and the shepherds and people that came to see her Son.

She pondered and treasured. Taking it all in. She knew what was important in that moment.

May we begin to treasure these moments and ponder them as well.

Not just the highlight reel, but the raw, and the nitty gritty parts of our day.

Those will become gifts. The hidden treasures that we may not have ever seen if we had not paused and pondered and treasured.

slowing it down,

jill