Mary: Faith

What if what they said was true? The angel who called Mary highly favored and told her that she’d be the mother of a king? Elizabeth, whose own miracle child leaped for joy in her once-barren womb, and who called Mary “the mother of my Lord”? Simeon and Anna, who’d waited so long to see Mary’s son?

Mary asked, “How can this be?” A big question, and one the angel answered. Still, how many more questions did she hold back? She knew how much she was being called to risk: home, family, reputation, community, safety. Her identity and her very future. Maybe even her life. She had so few answers, but knew enough about the God she loved to know she could trust those questions to Him to answer in his own time.

Maybe Mary knew that God’s love, and loving God, didn’t hang on the thin thread of answered questions. Instead, Mary held her questions in trust, and stored up her experiences as treasures. Angels, shepherds, wise men, Joseph’s protection and provision, the bittersweet tears and worship songs of an old man and woman in the temple. And from time to time, she’d open her memory chest of treasures and see how the gems of her experiences sometimes found their way into the waiting settings of her questions. So that even the unanswered questions were transformed into promises that God would provide what was needed.

Mary trusted that what the angel, Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna said was true. That God, in his love, had birthed his Son – Immanuel, God with us – through her. And Mary, in turn, loved God with her obedience and with all her questions. Even the ones still waiting for answers.