Why I Didn't Get the Job

Why I Didn't Get the Job

In studying the nativity story, my heart breaks everytime for Mary. She is just a normal kid. She's well behaved and godly. She doesn't have a messy past. She probably daydreams about getting married to her fiancee, but kids probably aren't even on her mind yet. And then one day an angel comes. Angels look like people in movies- but who knows what they actually look like. He tells this sweet innocent girl that she us about to experience a social taboo that could cost her life, not to mention her future husband. " Oh, and by the way- the kid is going to be the savior of all mankind. Good luck sister." Here is where my initial freakout would happen: "Dude, I'm a virgin! My Dad has paid this nice dowry, he's gonna kill me! What will my mom think? I'm gonna lose friends over this. People will make assumptions you know! My hot fiancee is not going to like this. I'm going to get fat- you only get to have a stretch mark free teenage existence for a short time! Am I really equipped to raise the MESSIAH? I sometimes say bad words, I like watching trash on tv, I like dancing, I'll probably feed him Oreos sometimes. Are you sure I'm your girl?"

But she doesn't give the Mindy Russell answer. She decided to be God's servant. Very un-me-like. She didn't flip out.

Here's the part I definitely don't get. She was a good Jewish girl. Her song was full of scripture- so I assume she knew the prophecies about the messiah. Did she know what was going to happen? It brings tears to my eyes to think about my children getting shots. Her son was going to die the mist gruesome death imaginable. I don't know that I could carry a child knowing that death on a cross was their ultimate fate. Yes, I'm sure she knew about the Resurrection, but is it possible she could have doubted? Even though she knew he'd return, it couldn't have hurt her any less watching him take the punishment for nations and generations that her eyes would never see- and people that were more evil than she would ever fathom. That's where I'd quit. I couldn't trade my child's life for a nice, good, and kind person, let alone the redemption of someone like Hitler.

Did she worry everyday of her life? Did she think about how it would all go down? He was her flesh and blood. She grew him in her womb. I think of how it felt when my babies moved inside of me. How it made me feel like I could move heaven and earth with the depth of my love for them. But she was only human, did carrying the divine make her feel that even more?

Most certainly Mary didn't have issues with anxiety and worry, or to put it out there plainly- she didn't lack the faith that makes one ask these questions. She was overjoyed, God chose her to carry, feed, bathe, clean, rock, teach, and protect our savior. She was his most intimate human relationship. No one would ever know and love the savior like his Mama.

God knew what He was doing when he passed me over for the job of being Jesus's mom. I am so thankful that he chose me to be a mother at all.

I don't believe that Mary was magical or divine. I think she was one of us, fighting the human condition, asked to do something extraordinary. I think she got through because she knew that even though she was his mom, Jesus wasn't hers. Just like I know in my heart that Isaac and Hope aren't mine. God has let me borrow them, so that I can give them back. And although I feel like my love for them can move heaven and earth- it can't. But I can choose to put their lives into the hands of the one who can. There is no safer place.

Jesus had a mother. And thank God it wasn't me.