Fully a month after Christmas and here’s me still thinking about Mary, a major character in the Christmas story. I think it’s because we had one final Christmas gathering last weekend and my dad read the Christmas story. The phrase about Mary pondering all the things really caught my attention. I thought I had a momentous year with the birth of my baby boy and so many other more minor but still major events and happenings. Compared to the year Mary had when her first child was born, however, my life seems very manageable.
Mary’s life, the year Jesus was born:
-then something stranger: an angel visitor with an unbelievable message that took her days, months, a lifetime to process.
-ostracized by all the people who didn’t believe her unbelievable story about where her baby was coming from (those weeks when Joseph was considering breaking off their engagement were especially torturous.)
-then one day the first strange and miraculous movement of a super human baby insider her and everything started to feel more real and doable
-a long trip with her fiancé and his family to their home village (so many distant family members she had to meet when all she wanted to do was sleep. In a real bed. Not. A. Pile. Of. Hay.)
-the trauma of giving birth in a barn
-then finally meeting the newborn that immediately changed the whole world, not just her world. (She had to share her baby with everyone from the very beginning. How hard must that have been for her protective first time mom heart?!)
Mary kept these things and pondered them in her heart. Everyone else was talking about them: the neighbours were gossiping about her and Joseph, the shepherds were telling everyone they met about this Baby, the Saviour, and the angels and their amazing song. The wisemen asked so many people where to find this Little King that they accidentally alerted a jealous murderer to the birth of this baby King. Old people were waiting in the temple to meet the Baby.
It must have felt to Mary like was talking about her and her baby, and no one understood what she was going through. She had no choice but to quietly process everything internally, to ponder these things in her heart on top of second guessing how to mother a Holy Child, how to share Him with everyone in the world, how to cherish every single smile, giggle, silly game before He grows up……………………
Disclaimers. I took a lot of poetic license with the Christmas story and humanized it to the point where it is relatable for me. No irreverence is intended.
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