What Mary Didn't Do …
Do you remember being 13? I remember experiencing a common teen-girl behavior: freaking out. I believe all teen girls do this often — triggered by any variety of things ranging from a zit to a stolen boyfriend. Chalk it up tor hormones or whatever you like, but freaking out is the norm at 13. (Or 30 for some … but that’s another issue.)
Not for Mary. If anyone had cause to freak out it was her. She is nine months pregnant with the Son of God, still enduring ridicule from all sides, but probably holed up her in her home nesting like crazy, getting the nursery ready and having everything prepared. We who have had babies know that crazy-nesting period when we can’t shampoo the carpets enough times and can’t make enough gallons of soup to freeze before baby’s arrival. We’re nuts, all of us.
But just as she’s about to bring baby boy into the world, all the plans change:
Road trip.
And not just any road trip: a donkey-riding roadtrip of almost 100 miles. Oh for the love! Can you imagine? I could hardly walk up the stairs at 9 months pregnant, and this little waif of a thing was trotting across Israel about ready to burst. This girl is amazing.
But that’s not it. Sure, she’s thinking, surely there will be a nice hotel waiting for us when we get there. One of those special doula birthing suites with a Jacuzzi tub. Nope. No room.
How about a barn?
I’m sorry, ladies, but can you stinkin’ imagine this??!! We think that the childbirth nightmare is not making it to the hospital in time and giving birth in the car. No … this is the childbirth nightmare. leaning against a hay bale while pushing out your baby, then lying him in a feed trough for his first night of sleep. Good grief.
This was God’s plan. Would Mary freak out?
No. She was calm, cool, and collected. No epidural. No Jacuzzi tub. No nothing. Every plan changed. Nothing was as she expected. There may have been tears, I can only imagine she was humanly hormonal, but her cries weren’t loud enough to make it onto the page.
She must have wept quietly. She must have talked to herself instead of listening to herself. Must have chosen to submit her emotions to the rule of Christ — who she held in her arms.
She was the first to bow the knee. The first to submit to His plan. And the result was a calm, cool, collected first-time mother who cradled the glory of God in her very arms. Why? She knew her God.When all is out of control, nothing is out of His control.
Do we remember this when all is spinning out of control? Nothing is out of His control.
:: Mary kept confidence. Besides freaking out, the other behavior commonly known to teen girls is called “blabbermouth syndrome.” Yes, that is, there is no gate on that beautiful mouth and so everything comes out. Again, some girls never outgrow this … but that’s another topic.
While Mary was entrusted with the Savior, she was also entrusted with a Secret. As God gradually revealed the magnificent truth about this God-child, she was given a first-hand glimpse of the miraculous Rescue Mission her very Son would spearhead.
Would she tweet it? Blog about it? Put it all over Facebook?
Could she be entrusted to keep quiet? To hold the truth in confidence, knowing that God would unfold His plan at the appropriate time? She did. When the shepherds shared with Mary the amazing news that had been told them by the heavenly host, what did she do?
“But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.” (2:19)
Where did she treasure them and ponder them? In the quiet of her own heart. And then, as Jesus grew and revealed in His own words more about His mission, that He must be in His father’s house, once again,
“she treasured up all these things in her heart” (2:51)
God’s glorious gospel-plan depended on the discretion of a teenage girl. It wasn’t time to blab about her boy.
Mary wasn’t called to be a prophet, just a mom.
Would she quietly be faithful to her task? She was. And in God’s beautiful time, the Rescue Mission unfolded, the glorious love story of a Groom seeking a Bride.
Here’s the cool thing for us: We will never be called on to give birth to the Son of God (that seat’s taken!) but we will all be called on for some mission of God. We each have a unique calling on our lives. Will we follow through? Is God’s glory safe with us?
Will we be courageous when everything is scary? Will we stand in confidence with our future looks unsure. Will we stay calm, cool, and collected even when everything’s spinning out of control? And will we keep confidence, showing discretion at the appropriate times. The qualities that Mary needed for her mission are the same qualities we need for whatever mission God has for us.
And He does have a mission for us. He has good works, prepared in advance for us (Eph 2:10). How will we respond? I’m grateful for a girl named Mary who quietly, simply, humbly submitted her will to God’s and let Him write her into His story. I pray the same for us…
{Revisiting this from last year … bless you as you prepare for His birth! Thanks for reading.}
The Perfect Gift For Your Family This Christmas
I had gotten up early. Everything was ready. The baby Jesus doll was hidden. Gifts were wrapped. Cinnamon rolls were formed, rising, ready to bake.
My barely 4-year-old son was the first to rise. He shuffled downstairs, carrying his new Lightning McQueen car he’d received for his birthday just four days prior.
I bound over, excited. “Good morning, sweetie! Do you know what today is?”
He rubs his eyes, scrunches up his face. “Can I play with my toys?”
I continue: “It’s Christmas! Isn’t that exciting?! And now you get to look for baby Jesus!”
He runs over to the couch, hides his face in a pillow. “I don’t want to look! I want to play!”
“But … after we find baby Jesus we can open your presents!” My mind races. We’re supposed to be at my parents’ house at 10am. We still have to do baby Jesus, open gifts, and deliver hot cinnamon rolls to a family down the road.
My son starts to cry. “I don’t want to open presents! I just want to play with my toys.”
This is unbelievable. I shake my head. What child doesn’t want to open presents? Why is my family always the one where nothing goes right?
I promise him there are more toys to be had, and we finally get him to the tree. He opens a box, a gift sent from a relative. It’s a package of socks. His face falls. Now I’m irate. Really? Come on people, I’m trying to get my kid excited about Christmas and you gave him socks for crying out loud!
“Mommy, I don’t want socks I just want to play with my toys!” Now he’s crying and I’m on the verge.
Eventually we make it out the door. My dear husband, wanting to cheer me up, suggests we stop at Starbucks. He runs in while I stay in the car. It takes him another fifteen minutes because the line is so long. Seriously, people, it’s Christmas! Go home and be with your families for crying out loud! By now we’re an hour late and it shows on my face. I know I’m being ridiculous, but I’m on the verge of tears. Why am I so irrational? It’s Christmas!
Eventually, we make it to the family’s house to deliver the cinnamon rolls. We’ve been doing theTwelve Days of Christmas and it’s our day to reveal ourselves. Their whole family comes out on the porch, all hugs and laughter and genuine joy. I notice they’re all still in jammies. I ask about their day, what their plans are, still struck by how happy they all are.
The mom smiles and responds, “Oh we just relax, stay in our jammies all day. We play games or do something fun. You know, whatever.”
Whatever.
That’s what I’m missing.
The gift of whatever. When we give our family our expectations, everybody loses. We wrap up our ideals, our dreams of the “perfect” day, and then expect them to perform according to our plan. When they don’t, we’re frustrated. All in the name of the most wonderful time of the year.
What if, instead of giving expectations, we gave the gift of whatever. If we decided that whatever happened on a holiday, we’d be happy and thankful. That the only expectations we had were for ourselves, expecting ourselves to be kind. Expecting ourselves to be gracious. Expecting ourselves to be willing to go with whatever.
The gift of whatever is the perfect gift to give your family this Christmas.
A fun, flexible holiday where the only thing that’s set in stone is the certainty of joy.
{Remind myself of this again this year. Bless you, friends and thanks for reading…}
Christmas Tragedy
It just seems beyond comprehension — how can someone open fire on innocent children? Last week we saw evil unmask its evil face, and a nation is left searching for answers. I had some myself:
Couldn’t God have stopped that man? Couldn’t God have made those children stay home from school that day? Couldn’t He have fired that teacher the previous year so that an entire class of children would have been spared? There were a million ways I could think to intervene.
But He didn’t.
I do believe that we are unaware of all the myriad ways that God graciously holds back evil on a daily basis. If Satan were unleashed, if God removed His sovereign hand, truly all hell would break loose. But for the most part, He shows the world immeasurable grace in that events like these are unusual.
But still, how on earth can this be part of God’s plan?
Strangely enough, the day that the shooting took place, I read about another horrific massacre of innocent children. In fact, it was much more widespread, probably hundreds if not thousands of children killed.
I ashamed to confess I read over it without much thought. Whereas the Sandy Hook tragedy brought me to tears and had me glued to the news and praying all day for the families affected, I read this other horrific story with hardly a pause. Do you know where I read it?
In the Christmas Story.
I read it in the Bible. Matthew 2. Right smack dab in the middle of the glorious Christmas story, the one we read to our children every single year, there lies a paragraph that should give us pause.
“Then Herod … became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem, and in all that region who were two years old or under.” Matthew 2:16
Can you imagine how horrific this is? How on earth is this happening right in the middle of God’s glorious rescue mission? Why would He allow this right in the midst of the most beautiful story ever told? It’s smearing blood across the beautiful portrait He’s painting.
And it, all of it, was in order to fulfill His eternal purpose.
Because Herod was out to kill Jesus, his parents took Him to Egypt. “This was to fulfill what the Lord has spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” He had them flee so that in the end everyone would see that Jesus was God’s Son. And in the midst of the horrific slaughter, we read,
“Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted because they are no more.” (vv.17-18)
Again, God used this horrific tragedy to fulfill prophecy and His eternal purpose. After Herod died, Archelaus reigned, and Joseph and Mary were able to return, but withdrew to a city called Nazareth, “that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled: “He shall be called a Nazarene.” (v. 23)
Not one, not two, but THREE major Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled concerning Jesus in the midst of this horrific event. Now, not a single one of those dear Mamas would have known this truth, as she wept aloud day after day and grieved the death of her precious baby boy. She would receive no comfort from this, the same way that no Sandy Hook parents want to hear about the Great and Glorious plan that God is working through the murder of their children.
But, no matter who wild we are in pain, and no matter how much we don’t understand, we can look at the Christmas Tragedy and see an All-Powerful, All-Loving God, weaving the course of history into a drama like none other.
I have no doubt that He WILL, in the end, remove the veil from our eyes and let us see the course of History through His eyes. He will right every wrong, wipe every tear, and, I believe, when we see how all things were woven together for His purpose, our good, and His glory, we will break into applause, jump up and down in celebration, and fall on our faces to worship the One True King.
“Therefore, comfort one another with these words.” (1 Thess 4:18)
Thanks for reading.
Week's end with thanks in the wake of recent events…
I’ve been at a loss for how to do this week’s end with thanks. On the one hand, I am overflowing with circumstantial things to be thankful for. They go like this …
- Hikes and Daddy Day and a wonderful week with my kids.
- The house we live in (rent) SOLD this week! Perfect timing for us moving and for the people who own this house, and the dear couple moving in, and for us. Excited for all three parties!
- Packing. As much as I don’t love moving, I do love organizing everything, tossing, purging, and cleaning out closets. It’s a great feeling and I’m grateful for it!
- God turning another publisher rejection into another opportunity to praise, grow, learn. VERY excited to be putting out TWO e-books very soon, just in time for Christmas, and excited to give one to YOU.
- Great friends.
- Homemade pizza.
- Discovering new friends who are “weird” just like us. That’s so fun!
On the other hand, this week was one of unspeakable tragedy. The shootings at Clackamas Town Center and Sandy Hook Elementary have us in constant prayer for those dozens of families who have lost loved ones this week.
It seems, in response, there are two ways to thank in the wake of this weeks’s events.
One, we can thank God that it didn’t happen to us. This is very natural. I am absolutely thankful that I tucked my children into bed last night. That as I type these words my son is playing with Legos right beside me. That my daughter is snuggling in bed with daddy. I watched them sleep last night, their tiny chests rising and falling, and couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed with gratitude that they are still here.
But, our thanks can get deeper (and better) than that.
See, so often our (my) thanks just stays there. Though it’s natural, and normal, all it is essentially is: “Thank you, God, that that person’s suffering isn’t mine. That you that that didn’t happen to me.” In some ways (though not as pridefully), it’s like the Pharisee’s pray of thanks in Luke 18:
“‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.”
It’s only an itty-bitty step up (if at all) to merely thank God that we aren’t experiencing the horror and pain that other people are. And although we’d never purposefully put it that way, if we aren’t careful we will naturally become people who merely thank God when bad stuff doesn’t happen to us.
So this week, I’ve been thinking about how to thank God in ways that are deeper, better, truer, than simply, “Thank you that my children are still alive!” I’m not pretending that’s not in my heart, but here are things I’m thankful for beyond that, in light of everything this week:
- That God is in control of every single moment and every single event and that nothing is outside His sovereign power.
- That God WILL right every wrong and bring absolutely justice to every situation and every person on earth, in the end.
- That God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.
- That God has a special love for children.
- That every single one of those precious children, I believe, are safely tucked into the arms of Jesus.
- That, I believe, God will use this tragedy to draw many to Himself, first and foremost the parents of those who were killed. Praying and believing that!!
- That perhaps, I pray, these atrocities will awaken our nation to the reality of evil and show us the natural outcome of a culture that celebrates sin and death. Please God, open our eyes. Turn us back to You.
- That the gospel, our faith, rests entirely on God bringing the greatest good out of the most horrific tragedy of all time. NOTHING is so terrible that God cannot bring it to good. He showed us that on the cross and He can do that today.