Tiny Treasures

I just love snacks, don’t you? At work, I have a drawer full of almonds, dark chocolate covered almonds, peanuts, pretzels, and popcorn. There’s just enough to get me through until lunch and just enough to get me through to the end of the day. There have been times when I’ve eaten half a bag of almonds before noticing.

We all have moments in our day that are snack-sized moments. Whether we are talking about actual snacks, or the moments that come and go so quickly we barely notice them. I like to call them “Tiny Treasures.”

For the past several years I’ve had a word for the year, or some call it, “One Word.”

My word for 2022 is TREASURE. It’s derived from Luke 2:19. That’s where “X” marks the spot—where we’re going to dig for gold (okay, okay, I’ll stop with the puns). For real though, we’re going to learn a lot from Mary from this one, little, yet powerful verse.

“But Mary was treasuring up all these things in her heart and meditating on them.” Luke 2:19 CSB

She gave careful thought. She pondered. She thought about the moments in her day. She found value in them. She didn’t post every detail of her life on social media. She didn’t call every member of her family or her friends to tell them every exciting or frustrating moment. She treasured them. Her moments were gold to her.

What was she treasuring, you ask? Let’s take look.

Perhaps she was pondering on the angel who visited her. The one who spoke to her telling her she would become pregnant by the Spirit and give birth to a son. I think I would ponder that too! I mean, how would you explain that on Facebook, Tik Tok, or Snap Chat anyway?

I’m sure she knew all the prophecies of the coming Messiah and how she had carried The Prophecy. Holding that baby, Jesus, she may have been pondering the shepherds who had just visited. Probably smelly, rough around the edges from their long journey. As they rode off proclaiming and glorifying God, telling everyone what they had seen – Mary simply treasured her moments. Glorifying God in her heart, breathing deeply, smiling, being still.

When I chose treasure as my word for 2022, I also wanted to keep record of my daily, treasured moments. I’ve always loved to journal in the mornings with my daily devotions. So, I decided at night right before bedtime I would journal the Tiny Treasures of my day. Each night, I close my eyes, ponder the day and then write 3-4 things from my day. Good moments, bad moments, and things I noticed in the boys, myself, or Eric. At work stuff, at home stuff, at Target stuff…

I chose to include the bad and frustrating moments as well, because a few verses down in Luke 2, when Jesus is twelve years old, and his parents take him to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. 

Verse 43 tells us, “After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it.”

Feet of a little boy dangling from inside a rack of clothes

It took three days for them to be reunited. They went a whole day assuming He was with them! Have you ever had the feeling of your heart falling because you lost a child in a store or amusement park? Instant panic! I lost Eli once in Macy’s while Christmas shopping. I searched all around and finally found him, his little legs dangling from the center of a round clothes rack. He wasn’t lost – he knew right where he was. It’s these moments that are hard to forget.

Verse 49 of Luke tells us Jesus knew right where He was as well, “Why were you searching for me?” he asked them. “Didn’t you know that it was necessary for me to be in my Father’s house?” She didn’t get angry when she found Jesus teaching His elders in the Temple, no, even that she pondered and valued. Verse 51 goes on, “Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart.”

Let me share some of my treasures from 2022. I hope you’ll see how even the mundane is a treasure.

  • My #1 treasure is Saturday mornings. I love slow mornings. Cooking breakfast with Eric and the extra time I have with Jesus.

  • I got the laundry caught up. It probably won’t long but I treasured those 10 minutes.

  • The cute stuff I got at Target today.

  • I didn’t roll my eyes at a customer for a full day.

  • One of the boys talked to me about his girlfriend. She’s not his girlfriend anymore and he talked to me about that too.

  • Ian is ready to go back to school after Christmas break. It brings be peace to know he loves it.

  • Today was a good mascara day.

  • Eric’s dedication to do things well.

  • Eli’s love for talking; if he’s not talking, he is singing.

  • Seeing a frown turned upside down.

  • I got to give encouragement to someone today.

  • Another time I tried to encourage someone, but my words didn’t reach them – someone else’s did.

  • A storm canceled good plans. Sometimes an interruption in plans is a blessing·     

  • I made a new recipe and I didn’t mess it up, it actually tasted good, and I didn’t have any cooking anxiety (it’s a real thing) in the process. I was very proud of myself.

  • Being a constant Uber for Isaiah. It is so easy to be annoyed with all his plans. He is very social but as I ponder his popularity, I am thankful for the friends he has chosen to surround him…he’ll be driving on his own soon enough and that comes with it a whole new level of independence that I’ll have to learn to treasure.

Here’s my question: how familiar are you with pondering? With treasuring the tiny “snack-sized” moments of your day? Here’s an example from the treasures above of how I take the frustrating moments and turn them around.

  • (Isaiah’s Uber)… I know I can fall into a habit of mindlessness or a mind full of chaos but having this word has helped redirect my mind into a state of pondering and treasuring. Instead of freaking out and asking “why, do I always have to take you somewhere?” I treasure the small talk we’ll make on the way.

  •  (Another example of turning a frustration around)… Instead of being annoyed at the constant sound of Eli’s tennis ball hitting the closet door in the living room—He has literally turned our front room into a small gym—I treasure that he’s found a passion in tennis.

By writing out these snack-sized treasures every day, I’m trying to be someone who doesn’t just move past the everyday situations but pauses long enough to discover the gold to be found.  Recognizing the miraculous in the mundane. These everyday things… we give them the power to either charge us or drain us. When our hope is in Jesus and not in our plans, our expectations, or our performance, then finding the treasure in the daily interruptions will be easier. We’ll grow in hope, resilience, and steadfastness.

This New Year let’s pause and linger a little longer, remembering our Ebenezers and keeping an eye open on the treasures right in front of us, right now.

And above all else, treasure Jesus in your heart.

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