Mary and Her Precious Promise

This time year I am utterly amazed at the story of the Nativity. I mean yes...there is the shepherds..the wisemen...and the stable, but what about Mary? We've heard her story for thousands of years about a virgin who was told by an angel that she would carry God's son. But does it end there? As a mother who was pregnant at Christmas time I now look at Mary and her story in an entirely different light. This is one person I want to know the story of when I reach Glory. The Bible leaves out so much of this journey in her life/faith that we are only left to imagine. What faith in God it must have taken to so easily accept that she, a 16(ish) year old virgin was going to concieve and carry God's own son! Can you imagine being told by an angel that you were CHOOSEN as seeing favor in God's eyes! How blessed amoung women!

For all of you mothers or mothers-to-be, you know the doubts the fears, the thought you have about this baby growing inside of you and what their life will be like as well as what your new life will be like. Can you imagine the thoughts and fears Mary had? Would Joseph accept her and this new child and take them both into his home? What would her parents and loved ones say when she told them yes she was pregnant, but she was still a virgin, and oh by the way...it's God's son! As a mother myself I could see that one going over REAL smoothly! Did Mary wonder about why she was chosen? Why God chose to have her go through the mockery of being pregnant and not married. As I heard someone say on a radio show today....it's funny how all that's in the news now is how Jamie Lynn Spears is 16 and pregnant (at Chirstmas time). If the sinful world of today is making this big of a deal about it, how did the world react to a 16 year old pregant girl in Mary's day? Did everyone she know turn against her and mock her? As was custom in those days, Joseph had the right to bring her to a public stoning for her adulty. But being the awesome man of God he was, he listened to the angel and accepted Mary as his wife and the Chirst child as his adopted son.

I also wonder what it was like for Mary in those last days. I remember all too well that feeling of being 9 months pregnant, now can I imagine ridding a donkey for days on end and 9 months pregnant? When Mary and Joseph realized the baby was coming and there was no decent place for them to stay...did she panic or did she know that God would provide and protect? It is led to believe that Mary did have a midwife to help her bring this tiny miracle into the world, but can you imagine? Today a teen pregnancy is a high risk delivery and she delivered in a filthy barn with possibly a midwife, possible only Joseph around?

The part that chokes me up each time is how awesome God has brought the woman full circle in the story of sin. In the garden of Eden it was the woman that was tempted by the snake to take the first bite. I have read one opinion (from the book Captivating by John Elderidge...if you have not read it PICK IT UP! It will change you life!) that the woman was chosen by the snake not because she was the weaker vessel but because she was the heart of it all. She is the relational one. The man and her children depend on her to keep them connected as a family both spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Think about it, who is the one in your fmaily who made sure everyone made it around the dinner table at night, who helped you patch up the fight with a sibling, and who said your bedtime prayers with you? She is the nurturer. She is the one who keep the family ties bound together, so if Satan can break that in her, he can essentially break the husband and the children without even trying. Ok...I kinda got on a bunny trail there! Anyways Satan choose the woman and SHE was who sin entered the world through. The cost of her sin was that she would from then on have difficulties in the laboring of her children.

Thousands of years later.....God now chooses a woman through whom all sin will be taken from the world with the birth of her son. Through her payment of sin...her labor pains, she births the one who could save her from those very sins. Amazing how God works huh? It really makes you as a woman feel redeemed doesn't it? God has choosen a fellow woman to bring forth His plan for salvation. And people say God sees women as the lesser sex?

I really look forward to the day where I can sit at the throne of God and just ponder in His awesome-ness and I learn the whole story of Mary and the birth of her Precious Promise.

Here is an awsome song that makes you think about this Precious Promise...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckKiPcS4irk