Christmas Heart Check

“For the Lord sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7b

“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” Psalm 139:23-24

~ Guest post by Karen Tolliver ~

Years ago, a well-seasoned mom said this about herself in reference to her children:

“Sometimes I’ve been more concerned with the dirt on their faces than the dirt on their hearts.”

Michelle Duggar, 19 Kids & Counting

This struck me as something that I didn’t think I had much of a problem with, but one day it became reality for me. I was wiping off the mud-covered face of one of my kiddos. This kid had just been outside screaming terrible, mean, & hurtful words at his brother…at the TOP OF HIS LUNGS!! This of course resulted in a huge mud fight between them. As I was hurrying outside to stop my neighbors from witnessing this embarrassing display, the boys came tearing in the house covered from head to toe in mud!

Instead of addressing the heart issue (the mean and hurtful words), I immediately started yelling and going off about what the neighbors might be thinking and the amount of mud that had been tracked in, strewn about the whole house, and covering their faces. Now I’m not saying that I shouldn’t have been upset about the neighbors hearing this or the mud all over, but why didn’t I address the real issue, the heart issue? I didn’t address the mean & hurtful words that were just strewn out all over his brother, as well as falling on his other siblings’ ears, spreading far more dirt than what covered his face and my house. I was blinded by the dirt on his face. In fact, I got so busy cleaning up the mud that I don’t think I ever did address the heart issue!

Fast forward a few years later when my kids and I were having Bible time in our homeschool…

We were reading and discussing the meaning of the 2 scripture verses listed above. We discussed what a dirty heart might look like. We were able to look back on the “mud fight” incident and we all decided that the kid that had yelled the hurtful words had dirt on his heart. I even went as far as asking what they thought a dirty heart might smell like. I asked the kids what the grossest, most horrible smell they could think of was. We all unanimously agreed on one of my sons socks! So, since we are big on analogies in our house, we made the analogy that when we display the dirt on our hearts, its like we are shoving dirty socks in others’ faces, but more importantly, in God’s face!

Just recently, during our Christmas devotions, we came across these same verses and talked about what Mary’s heart was like. When we think about the conditions of the stable, we can only imagine how dirty it was – how it probably smelled worse than my son’s socks! How horrifying it might have been for Mary, as a mother, to have to give birth to the Savior of the world under such conditions! She may have wrestled with the amount of dirt and horrible smells surrounding her, and maybe she even felt like saying nasty words and “shoving a dirty sock” in God’s face?! But instead, Luke 2:19 says;

“But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.”

What a lesson we can learn from Mary!
As we approach Christmas, it’s easy to get caught up in the cleaning, shopping, preparing, & more cleaning for Christmas and focus on appearances. I once was so involved with rummaging around the house searching through totes of clothes to try and find beautiful dresses for my girls to wear to the Christmas program that night, that I didn’t even notice they were all screaming hate-filled words and throwing wrapped Christmas presents at each other!

I was again blinded by my desire to have them look good in front of those “church-folks;” not at all thinking about the condition of their hearts as they went to sing about Jesus. Fellow mamas, are we stopping and addressing heart issues? Are we doing heart check-ups with our kids? Are we more concerned with the dirt on their faces than the dirt on their hearts? Are we reminding and encouraging them to focus on Jesus and others so they don’t develop “smelly sock” hearts? Let’s all pray together that we let the miracle of the Christmas story infuse our hearts, regardless of the conditions surrounding us, and we can truly “treasure up all these
things and ponder them in our hearts.”

Guest blogger, Karen Tolliver, is a wife to Michael and mom of 5 wildly creative kiddos. She is spunky, fun, hilarious, and this girl knows how to throw a party! She celebrates and serves with every breath and has taught me so much about shepherding a child’s heart. You might find her jamming out to Jesus Freak, teaching kids how to play with their food (“food art”), or finding ways to pour love into everyone around her.