Keeper

Mary kept it all. 

All the pieces of her heart, all the questions, all the fears, she kept the story. She kept the feeling, kept the moments, kept the shepherds, kept the foreigners, and thought of them often.

 Mary, overshadowed, was aware of her interrupted story more than anyone else. She tried to have small talk with friends, to enter into their world, but her heart was wrecked for the Divine. She had encountered Gabriel, gave birth to the Messiah, received surprised visits by Kings, she was ruined for ordinary things, but perhaps she hid it well. She pondered all these things and kept them close. 

I remember everything. 

My heart has kept the evidence of life overseas.
It brings my collection out when I'm least expecting it, spreading it before me when I wish to forget. Pondering heart, you surprise me. The small things are kept more than the programs and the ministries. The small things kept closer than the newsworthy events that bring accolades and donations. The small things are what ruined and transformed me. The voice of an orphan boy calling, "Shari, Shari!" 

It echoes into my nights sometimes.
The conversation in the bathroom while a couple of orphan girls wash their socks and talk like little ladies, Small, delicate children washing socks because there is no mother to wash for them. The eyes of a sick baby who has come to the end of his life because there was no money at home to send him to the hospital. I arrived too late, with cash in hand, too late. The cry of a street boy as he tries desperately to steal clumps of coal from a coal truck loaded up to deliver to families who could afford it. Hands black with soot, clothing dark from not washing, his cry when the truck pulled away...the cry of despair. His family would remain cold.


Those small unwanted details visit me. They follow me into stores where I see things I wish I owned. They haunt me in buffets piled with food. They are there always and maybe forever. Forever to remind me, Shari, you have seen more. To whom much is given, much is required.

I am a keeper, but so is God.
He keeps the sorrow of the suffering poor. He keeps track of their tears, and He keeps me. He can keep me.
Jesus, Jesus the baby, Jesus the redeemer, Jesus the promised Messiah, can keep me and all those I have loved and cried for. He can keep you too. Your pain, your disappointment, your failure, your loved one, your grief. 

This is the hope of the nativity. The story was only beginning there. When the shepherds left, and the wise men waved goodbye, when angels retreated to a heavenly realm, and the star burned cold, when all faded away into history, and the curtain closed on a promised night, Jesus did not.


Look at that baby's face, the tiny one in the manger.
Sent down to us, but not for a pretty Christmas decoration. Sent down to us for a day down the road, down the Calvary road. A newborn cry was act one. This was one baby here to save the world. Act two would crush a serpent’s head, crush it hard. We must not forget the power of a bruised heel.


Because of that, today, this day, the day before our Merry Christmas, be assured, the Keeper of all things keeps you.