Keeping and Pondering: A Re-Post from an Earlier Blog

Girlfriends, I LOVE to talk!  I love to share what little bit of news is floating around in my head.  Get me on a roll and it’s hard for me to shut up…especially if it’s something important to me or affecting me in some way.  I mean, seriously, I can make a whole novel out of my encounter with a gnat.  Poor Clay just nods and looks lovingly at me as I know his mind must be wandering somewhere…anywhere…else.  And I cannot blame him one bit. 

It’s hard, especially for me, to keep good information to myself.  If I know something, I want to “share” it.  I want to watch the expression on the other person’s face change to utter shock or disgust or exhilaration.  I want to be the one to get the news out first before someone else can tell it.  And I want to be the one credited with having the most knowledge on any juicy subject. 

So, verses like James 1:26 hit me particularly hard.  “If anyone among you seems to be religious and does not bridle his tongue, he deceives his own heart, and this man’s religion is vain.” 

It’s hard to be quiet.  It’s hard to know something…especially when others are talking about it…and not say a blessed word.  So, I am learning to literally bite my tongue…to clamp down on that vicious little muscle and hold it still.  I am learning to be “swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath” James 1:19. 

You know, there was always a small passage in Luke that amazed me.  Mary had just given birth to her son, Jesus Christ, who was the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  She had just had a visit from the shepherds who had miraculously heard the good news from the angels and had found and worshiped the Savior.  She was in a possession of significantly world-changing news.  And you know what she did with it?  “But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.”  Luke 2:19

She KEPT them???  She PONDERED them???  Why didn’t she TELL somebody??? 

Maybe, just maybe, this is one of the greatest lessons a woman can learn from another woman.  What a tremendous example of a woman truly after God’s own heart.  She knew when to remain silent.  And she left that legacy for you and me.  If she could keep and ponder her priceless news, surely I can do the same with my trivial little news from day to day. 

There are times to speak, but there are certainly times to be silent.  And my job is to follow Mary’s example and learn when each of those times is.  Just because I have news and a willing audience, doesn’t mean it is my place to speak.  And just as Mary is an example to me, perhaps, just perhaps, it is my calling to try to be an example and encourager to the other women around me…an example of a “gentle and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price” 1 Peter 3:4.

Quietly Gentled,
Carrie.