MARY. With a name meaning ‘beloved,’ Mary (the cousin of Elizabeth from yesterday’s post) certainly exemplifies this in her life!
We first meet Mary, engaged to carpenter Joseph, when her cousin Elizabeth (unknown to most at the time) is 6 months pregnant with her miracle.
Mary is visited by an angel, who informs her God holds her in high favor, she will become supernaturally pregnant & carry the long foretold Saviour.
Her response is to respond with wonder and accept the news to be true. I believe at that moment, Mary accepted without knowing what was to come, trusting the One who was putting His trust in her to be trustworthy to keep His word.
Wow!
We see that an angel also visited her fiance Joseph and informed him that the child she was carrying had been conceived by God, not another man like he was probably thinking and stressing over how to handle. Joseph married her, knowing she was carrying God with us within her, and ended up having taking Mary with him for the government census he had to do in Bethlehem around the time the baby was due.
Jesus arrives in a stable, as there was no room in any of the lodgings due to the census, and Mary’s world is turned upside down again in two new ways. She is now a mother, and has been charged with Joseph to raise the Messiah!
Right after the Magi (three Wise Men) visit her to leave gifts as they worship Jesus, whom the very stars have proclaimed to be King, they are warned by an angel to flee to Egypt until the earthly king Herod was no longer a threat to Jesus, and returned to Nazareth to raise their unusual son, & their other children.
Mary hid ALL the unusual things that happened raising Jesus in her heart. I think she knew that she would need these treasured memories one day, especially as Jesus began His ministry.
Mary was the first to ask Jesus to perform a miracle at the wedding in Cana, at the cross when Jesus died, and with the disciples on Pentecost when Holy Spirit fell upon them.
May we too be willing vessels for our Savior, and wonder at all the ways in which He moves in our lives, within and around us!
#SheBelongs #sharingHope
KARLA LEES 