Pondering Treasure...

     Today was  a rare lazy Saturday.  Like lots of people everywhere I spent part of the day in PJs leisurely perusing facebook.  Sometimes this seems strange. It's kind of weird to have kids who are old enough for their own leisurely pursuits on the days that we have no real agenda. It seems like only yesterday they were totally dependent on us to "entertain" them virtually all the time. Now.....they sleep in, they watch cartoons, they leave the table after breakfast and go off to play their own things. Sometimes on these days we don't even see them until they ask for lunch. They don't even need help with the TV or anything.  Yeah, I did mention it's bizarre. For those of you not yet there, it will come. :)  But I digress....back to my leisurely facebook perusing.

     Scrolling through the usual, I slowed to read a short morning post by a local  mom I recently had the privilege to meet.  I'll bet you can guess why.  Good guess.  Her sweet little daughter has just spent months fighting a horrendous battle. She has spent weeks upon weeks in the hospital undergoing brutal treatments that took so much from her little body. Her parents lived through something with her that is, at times, just unspeakable. Yet she is now home from her last treatment, and they are getting back to living.  This morning she posted a short list of fun everyday things they were doing and preparing to do. Yet they were so much more.  They were common girly things, yet considering their recent journey, they were extraordinary.  And incredibly sweet in their normalcy.  My reply to her was the first word that popped into my head, "Treasure."
And indeed, given the their new perspective, I know she knew what I meant.

     It reminded me of something...something I rarely think about at other times of the year. Like a gazillion other people, this time of year brings about much reading of the story of the birth of Jesus as told in the book of Luke.  The second half of Luke chapter 2 details all the things that went on around Mary with the shepherds and angels and their first visitors to see their new baby and how the news spread.  Luke 2:19 says that Mary "treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart."  There is such a wealth of meaning in those words. It means so much more than just remembering things, than making a mental note of them.

     Though I'd heard that verse almost all my life, I don't think I ever came close to grasping the full weight of those words until Braeden's illness.  Perhaps not even until after his death.  Because before that, I sometimes remembered things. I made note of them in my mind.  And too often, I discarded the common, the ordinary, the normal.  Because they weren't remarkable.  But when our plans, dreams, and hopes are challenged in a way we never imagined, it's not surprising that the common becomes a blessing. The treasured.  Now, I have memories that are treasured in my heart. Memories that are so real, so vivid, they feel --as if they involve all my senses.  Most of them are good.  I began squirreling them away in the early days of Braeden's illness.  I don't think it was intentional.  More like an instinctive response to the emotional upheaval. Or something like that.

     At times I've wondered if Mary had some inkling of what was to come.  I know I didn't.  I imagine that the sheer amazingness of her situation and all that had already happened gave her more than an inkling that this was something she needed to soak in. But now, because of our journey....the treasuring and pondering are intentional.  I don't just listen to the kids giggling and talking and playing....I savor those things. I close my eyes and drink them in.  Because like the treasured moments of the past, these moments hold no guarantee either.  There is no promise that they will last, and indeed I have already seen how incredibly fleeting they can be. So the common....the every day.....the ordinary? Remarkable.  Treasure.