Tag Archive | treasure

Author Confessions: What Do You Treasure?

Dec22
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Author Confessions: What Do You Treasure?

I love to give gifts and struggle to find the best one for people. I would prefer something they would treasure. Perhaps even something they didn’t know they needed or wanted that would bring them joy.

I doubt the majority of people recognized the treasure that rested in the arms of Mary. Sure shepherds came to visit in the middle of the night. I can’t imagine the disturbance. Even giving birth in a hospital, all you really want is to be with your baby and rest!

When I’ve been sick or in deep pain, it’s amazing how much the material things of this world fade away. Life narrows in those darker moments of life when the material fades and all that remains is us–and a holy God who is in control of the next moment.

While I fret about things like getting my dog to pee outside when the temperatures are freezing, or what to make for dinner, in a hearbeat all of those concerns vanish and become insignificant.

I’m not trying to minimize the daily concerns we all deal with. The challenges to pay the bills, respond to the emails, make sure everyone is doing well in our homes, including our pets. Those are real-life responsibilities we need to take seriously.

But in the bigger scheme of things, will the time spent fretting about them be something I will even remember six months or a year from now and look back and think they were important?

What do you treasure?

Some people put treasures in safes. Some display them. And yet Mary, pondered the events surrounding the night of Christ’s birth, treasuring them in her heart.

So what sticks? What lasts? While there may be many things in the end I think it might boil down to four:

  1. Faith. When we have a deep faith and have buried God’s Word in our hearts, that lasts. It provides comfort and solace as we cling to the Word made flesh: Jesus.
  2. People. You can have a wide network of people on social media but who is it you would drop everything for to be there if they were in need? Who would do that for you? Hold those people close and treasure those relationships. Quality relationships take time, but are worth the sacrifice. Pets might make this grouping as well.
  3. Memories. It is amazing how our brain can bring back memories and hopefully will help us focus on the good moments and the blessings, even in the midst of the difficulties we might endure through life. Visit those often and keep them fresh! Photo books are helpful for this too. While it may be hard to winnow down the multitude of photographs we take, now that everything is digital, having written notes can refresh the moments (and the names) we might otherwise forget and bring a smile to our faces.
  4. Music. It is amazing how music can bring so much joy and how nostalgic it can be. Certain songs propel me back in time to when I was earnestly struggling and seeking God in the middle of it and how those songs carried me through. When I was having a birthday party this year I combed through hundreds of CD’s and culled out my favorite “party” songs to play – those that make me happy but many were tied to moments too. I still love listening to that and probably should make another of worship songs that I love. When my heart is troubled, I often revert to a handful of songs that I will sing to myself for comfort and a reminder that God (back to #1) is still at work.

Notice what didn’t make that list? Home. Cars. Careers. Education. Bank balance.

What do you think? What do you treasure most?

When I die someday, these two songs I want played at my funeral as they have such deep meaning for me and hopefully will bless you. They aren’t Christmas songs but they are very much about the Jesus whose birth we celebrate. Merry Christmas! Hold your treasures close.

How are things in Gloccamorra?

Nov29
Reading Time: 2 minutes

The past week or so I’ve been in a slump. Literally. No energy and just wanting to curl up with a good book.  Matter of fact, I’ve done a lot of that. Curl up by my pillow in my room and bury myself in novels. Since I had finished writing my NaNoWriMo novel (rough draft), I’ve read the works of others. I call it research as I read in the genre I write. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I understand however that in reality, I am depressed. It hit when I remembered the anniversary of a miscarriage and the trauma that surrounded that time. It was highlighted by the fact that seven years later, I still had no support from people in my life who are pledged to love and care for me. This was amplified on Thanksgiving Day where alcohol and thoughts of shopping were more important than relationships or *gasp* giving thanks to God from whom all blessings flow! Why was I with these people?

So I feel a bit like the leprechaun, Og, from Finnian’s Rainbow which just happens to be the play my husband and I attended on our first date. The funny thing is other than “How are things in Gloccamorra?” – are the words I remember from the scene below  that resonate with me: “Doom and gloom, gloom and doom!”

Ah, but gold was not meant for mere humans.

I am not in the worst funk ever. But it is amazing how the holidays can remind us of things we have lost. And I am reminded once again that this world is NOT my home. My Gloccamorra is heaven and my pot of gold lies in my future there – walking on streets paved with that glorious mineral, alongside my Savior.

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

(‘Nothing Gold can Stay”, Robert Frost)

I need to remember where I’ve buried my treasure. It cannot be found in human beings who will only let me down. Yes, I can enjoy those holy moments that come in this sinful world. But ultimately I need to dig myself out of my hole to see the Creator of the rainbow, and not so much the mythical pot buried at its end.

Am I talking in circles? Maybe. But hey, that’s just where I’m at today. And that’s okay because as I told a friend on Facebook the other day, diamonds shine brighter against a black cloth and the stars shine brighter in the darkest sky. In my darker moments, God’s glory is greater to me and more desirable than if all the lights were turned on and I was feeling great and the world was my oyster (okay, but then we get to pearls, let’s just not go there here!).

Anybody struggling like I am? David writes in Psalm 38:9 “LORD, all my desire is before You, and my sighing is not hidden from You.”  Even in the darkness, I am not alone – and neither are you.