Lessons from Mary

“And Mary said, ‘Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word.’” Luke 1:38  

I have been talking to the Lord a lot about Christmas… I know it is going to be so hard emotionally this year for our whole family to celebrate without Pete. It will be a happy/sad time. We will be truly be happy knowing that Pete will actually be celebrating the birth of Christ with the Lord this year...how incredible that will be for him! But here on earth, it will be sad in many ways as we adjust to celebrating Christmas without Pete’s happy presence with us!

With all of this running through my mind this week, I have specifically asked the Lord to teach me what He wanted me to learn through this hard journey this Christmas. He keeps bringing Mary, the mother of Jesus, to my mind so I have been reading scripture and reflecting on her life. She obviously must have had incredible trust and faith in God for Him to have chosen her out of all the women on earth to bear His only Son. In Luke 1:38, I find it amazing that she yields herself so completely to the Lord as soon as she hears the angel say that she would bear the Son of God! Did she really realize how much her life was getting ready to change? Was she scared? Was she worried? Oh, to be so trusting and submissive to the Lord like Mary when He brings life changes into life like He did for me this year!

In my readings this week, I found a devotional about Mary written by Melanie Chitwood from Proverbs 31 Ministries and I have been mulling over some of her reflections…

“God wants us to remember that before she was Mary, the mother of Jesus, she was just Mary, an ordinary girl like you and me. I can just imagine her loving Joseph and being excited about her future marriage to him. I can see her discussing with her parents the many plans for her new life.

Each ordinary day brought to Mary many small opportunities to turn toward God in faith or away from God in doubt or selfishness. And each day Mary chose to say yes to the small things God placed before her. Yes, God I’ll serve my family as I clean and cook. Yes, God, I’ll be your hands and heart right here in my family and community.

And then – an angel appears. Suddenly this ordinary girl on this ordinary day comes face to face with her extraordinary God. Gabriel reminds her, “For nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). Despite being afraid and puzzled, this proclamation seems to be all the assurance Mary needs.

I believe one of the reasons God chose Mary to be the mother of Jesus is that He had seen each time Mary had said yes in the small moments of her life. These everyday steps of faith had been her training ground, and He knew that she was ready to say yes to the extraordinary plan he set before her. God knew that throughout her life, Mary would say, Nothing will be impossible with God.

As we say yes to the daily, ordinary moments of our lives, let us be reminded that we are saying yes to our extraordinary God. May He find us faithful, just as Mary was faithful.”

What a good reminder to me! Because Mary yielded to God, her life was changed forever…yet she was still Mary. Think of all the roles she had to fulfill – a child, a wife, a mother, and later, a grandmother. In all these roles, and especially as the mother of Jesus, she would have loved, laughed, cared, cried, and suffered as she saw her Son being killed on the cross…and then rejoiced when He rose from the dead three days later! I am sure that her life was a roller coast of emotions! Yet she set the example of a life yielded to be used by God no matter what was going on!

Yielding…such an easy word to say, but such a hard word to do! This week, I have been thinking about how through her example, she showed me that her willingness to yield to the Sovereignty of God is what brought glory to Him.  I was convicted to remember that I need to daily seek to yield to His will for my life in order to bring Him glory. I can so easily allow myself to be consumed by my loneliness and sadness in missing Pete but I am trying to deliberately choose to yield every day to this new path God has sent me on. It is a daily battle…but I have learned that there is joy and peace in this yielding. He is teaching me…and for that I am grateful. It doesn’t make me miss Pete less but it makes the walk easier when I yield to Him than when I try to walk my “own” path filled with thorny tears and potholes of sadness!

I have always believed that when He finds us faithful in the small things, He will challenge us to do the next step in serving Him. I am not sure yet of all He has in mind for me to do. I do believe He is slowly pulling back the curtain and letting me see bits and pieces of the next steps. I sometimes still find myself crying over the thought of “doing” these things without Pete…but, at the same time, I know with all of my heart that I must keep moving forward toward seeking how He wants me to serve Him.  He is reminding me to remember that “nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37).

Oh, Father, help me learn to yield to You every single day!