Mary

I have always identified with Mary.  Maybe it isn’t so much “identified” as “inspired by”.  How can you not be amazed by her story?  Her willingness to step up, in faith, and follow the Lord’s plan.    I guess I first felt the connection to Mary when I was in high school.  I played her in our church’s Christmas musical.  I remember having one of our couch pillows ace bandaged to my belly and then putting that blue robe over it.  It looked pretty realistic.  But what I remember the most were the jokes.  People would pass me backstage and say all sorts of things.  As an innocent teenager, my cheeks were a permanent shade of pink.  I remember even my pastor getting in on that joke by saying “do your parent’s know?”  Ha. Ha.  Very funny.  I’d try to laugh it off but I was humiliated.   And I was expected to get up in front of the church and sing now?

I’m sure the humiliation I felt was only a tiny percentage of what Mary felt.  I doubt my embarrassment would even show up on a scale when compared to hers.  Can you imagine how she felt having to tell her parents?  Then having to tell Joseph- the poor unsuspecting man she was supposed to marry?  And the explanation?  “An Angel came to me in a dream and told me that I was having God’s son.”  WHAT?!  No wonder she left town and visited her cousin Elizabeth. She was probably laughed right out of the city gates. 

This “situation” was not only humiliating but it was dangerous.  Women who were caught pregnant before marriage were killed.  They were STONED to death.  This is what God was asking her to face.  He was asking her to stand up among her family and friends and say “I’m pregnant”, risking death.  That takes great faith.  And the girl was only a teenager.  That kind of faith takes maturity well beyond her years.

My connection to Mary grew with each of my pregnancies.  All my babies are winter babies so I face the toughest part of pregnancy as Christmas approaches.  I can’t help but put myself in Mary’s shoes once again.  As I write this I am feeling Addie Grace move.  Mary felt Jesus move.  She was the first one to know Him.  I have learned important lessons about my kid’s personalities while they were in the womb.  I wonder what kind of things Mary learned about Jesus as she held him in her womb.  I had to request Christmas to be at our house this year- doctor’s orders say no traveling at 7 months.  There were no such orders for Mary.  Jesus was due and she was traveling the country, on a donkey.  Ugh.  That sounds awful. 

I’m a little jealous, I have to admit.  Three of my friends have given birth to their baby boys recently.  We have rejoiced over the births of Josiah, Bennett and Charles.  Their moms get a whole different connection to Mary this Christmas. They get to wake up and at look at their babies on Christmas morning, much like Mary did. They get to stare into their boy’s eyes with gratitude and wonder. 

The other day I was listening to Christmas music as I was cleaning the kitchen and a new song came on my Pandora station.  It is Francesca Battistelli’s “Be Born In Me”.  It’s a beautiful song flowing with lyrics sharing Mary’s heart.  It talks about the promise of a Savior and her wonder at being the chosen one to hold him.  She sings “I’ll hold you in the beginning, you’ll hold me in the end.”  I wonder if Mary thought that way.  I’m sure she did.  I’m sure that the promise of her baby being the deliverance of her people would have been what gave her the courage to endure the humiliation and danger of pregnancy before marriage.   My favorite lyric though is the bridge.  It says “I’m not brave, I’ll never be.  The only thing my heart can offer is a vacancy.  I’m just a girl, nothing more.  But I am willing.  I am yours.”  I may not be carrying the Savior of the world but I those words can still echo my heart’s desire.  “I am willing.  I am yours.”  Those should be the words echoing in all of our hearts this Christmas.