I have always liked having secrets.
And Mary hid these things in her heart.
I think it is a woman thing. Women like to hold things and sometimes in a somewhat martyrish way for long periods of time without really speaking their heart on matters. But the beauty of this holding is also in the way a woman can wait and wait until the fullness of something shows itself. (After all, this is sort of a requirement with childbirth!)
But I remember when I felt like God gave me a secret. It was at the beginning of me getting to know Him, or wanting to know Him, and I just wanted to have something that told me I was special. Secrets are like that when you’re a little girl–sometimes we used them against other people–but you inherently like them because they are something that you have, something special, that requires a key to enter.
My first big secret came in the form of a God-dream. It was a very life-changing dream, one which woke me in the middle of the night so vivid and alive in its emotions that I had absolutely no doubt that I was being shown something. This dream still sticks with me because it showed me a lot of things that still yet to happen, but also because it gave me something to want to grow into. God trusts me, God wants to tell me something.
And I realized, God knows things that I know nothing about, and He is much subtler than I am. What makes you want to go to the next level with God? Not just so you can do something, or be a better person, but really find out more about Him? For me, it came in the form of secrets. I felt like I had this mission to ‘hold things in my heart.’ I could go about and tell everyone about them, but then that spoilt the whole mystical garden I was meeting God in.
I wanted to go out and carve this little space where just He and I talked. That was pretty radical for me, because up until then, most of my spiritual life was generated by other people, by being around others. I knew what He thought as long as it was agreed upon by others, or taught by others. I had nothing of my own experience to go by.
Mary took it to the next level when she hid the things in her heart. She carried on for nine months, and then for 30 years, holding this terrifying knowledge that God was going to break in and alter people’s reality. But even in that hiding, she let this knowledge grow and become a beautiful thing between her and Him.
What I like about it is also that she had to let it grow and mature in her, too. Even the angelic ‘ta da’ and the life-changing experiences have to go dig down deep into our spirit and mature in their understandings. A lot of us get some vision and then immediately go out and try to serve with it or get people on our train of thinking but even though sometimes God uses that, there is still the need to really sit and hold things. Men need to learn that, too.
But what is it that begs you to get into a room alone with God? (I mean an inner room?) What gets you excited about knowing more?
