I can't stop thinking about Mary today and how she might've been in labor by now. Having birthed two children of my own, I know the great anticipation, discomfort, excitement, and little bit of anxiety that come with it.
But wow, I can't imagine being around 14 or 15 and being in that situation. And wow, I can't imagine most of the world looking at me with scorn because I got pregnant out of wedlock. I know there are other girls, though, who can relate with one or both of those.
But wow, I can't imagine holding the secret that Mary held in her heart. She and a few others knew the truth, that she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit, that she was pregnant with the son of Yahweh, with the Messiah.
Wow. She's my hero. She heard a strange word from Yahweh and said, "Let it be as You have said." As much as it would be uncomfortable, as much as it would ostracize her, as weird as it might have been, she said, "Yes:" the choice of a young girl that changed the world.
That is the act of a little girl who KNEW God. That is the act of a little girl who had faith enough to move mountains. Don't you just know that she, like the rest of us, just heard the first word with no idea of exactly how it would play out? She must've had some ideas of how it might've played out, and probably, like with the rest of us, they didn't quite happen the way she imagined. If I were carrying the son of God, I wouldn't in a million years have thought that I'd be giving birth in a barn! Nor that I'd watch Him be murdered before my eyes so that He could redeem me and all mankind back to the Father.
One choice of a young girl that changed the world.
Makes me want to take very seriously every request He makes of me, regardless of how strange it sounds, or how many people I love shake their heads and don't understand. Makes me realize that the Kingdom really is this great thing that is larger than my life, that is worth my life and my reputation.
As much as Mary might have been scared, and as much as she might've been misunderstood, she had a secret...a BIG secret! When there were naysayers, I know that it hurt her. I know the changes her decision brought also brought great alienation and sadness in some ways. I also know that her heart was full of a good thing! I know that she found comfort in the presence of God and in the honor and joy of carrying out the mission He'd given her.
In the midst of it all, she prophesied with excitement and praised faithfully:
"My soul magnifies Yahweh, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior!
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; for behold...
From now on, all generations will call me blessed, for He who is mighty has done great things in me!
And HOLY is His name!
And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm.
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
And exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
And the rich He has sent away empty.
He has helped His servant Israel in remembrance of His mercy,
As He spoke to our fathers,
To Abraham and to his seed forever!"
She honored the faithfulness of the Father Yahweh that she knew and heard! I love her! And while I do not worship Mary, I am grateful for her faith in God and her choice that changed the world...and the example she set for us all to follow when our times come and come again to walk in obedience to what He speaks to us.
For you see, He's not finished. The birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus wasn't the end...it was the beginning...
Friday, December 24, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
A November Drive in Vermont
It had been gray all day. That's the color of November in Vermont, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. The whole expanse of the sky serenely covered us below with a thick cloud cover. I must've been driving home from an afternoon class, because I was the only one in the car, pressing my K-Mart knock-off-UGG boot (classy, I know) to the brake pedal every so often to keep my distance from the red taillights ahead of me on the highway. It was November, 2005, the hazy in-between month that eases us out of fall and into winter. The only way I knew the sun was setting, other than consulting the digital clock in my car, was from the grayness deepening to darker and darker shades among the hills around me. It had a lulling effect. A song began to form in my head as I was telling Yahweh how moving His creation was right at that very moment. "Everywhere I look, I see You there..."
There had been a mix of drizzly rain and big slushy snowflakes coming down periodically throughout the day, but now the road and the chilly air were still and dry. Maybe they hadn't gotten any precipitation yet further north, the direction I was headed. The song kept tumbling around my thoughts and my spirit. Low, thick clouds clung to the evergreens on the hillside to my right, thin clouds just above them rising slowly up the hill. To my left, clouds hovered right above the black waters of Lake Champlain in the distance, just beyond the small-town silhouette of St. Albans, the town where I exited off the highway. I still had a good 40 minutes of driving left. I was reflective and inspired, lost in one of those moments of heightened expression and appreciation that make a person feel sure they're about to solve the world's problems. I was enjoying Yahweh's presence. "The mist on the water rises up and over the green hilltop's trees, and I see. You. There."
The two-lane, country highway I now drove cut a curved line that respected the landscape. It's all corn fields and dairy farms. In summer, you can never pass anyone, because you can't see past the next curve. A thick growth of corn stalks over 7 feet tall lines the highway and blocks your view, so when you get stuck in an impatient line of cars behind a tractor doing its best at 15 miles an hour, you just have to wait it out. It's refreshing to have the stark reality of a farmer's pace force you to reconsider your own. But this day, this gloriously still, gray day, fell in what we call down-leaf time. All the fields are empty and resting. Unless you spot a patch of aromatic evergreens, the trees are inky black veins, barren and bold, stretching crookedly upward and outward. The leaves are gone. Everything is now uncovered and slightly more vulnerable, yet still strong. Without the soft green layer of leaves taking the edge off, the land shows its hardy fortitude. Once hidden streams and land features become apparent, revealing themselves fully for what they are, in addition to any changes that might have occurred in the last year, good or bad. No facade, no front. Seasons of down-leaf time, as in nature, come in life too. "Sure strength, open elegance in Your creation when all is exposed, and I know. You're. There."
Then something interrupted my thoughtful reverie. One field I was approaching on my left was a smaller patch that lay, like everything else, empty. It was familiar; we passed it every day. All that it retained from its fruitful summer growth season and subsequent fall harvest were its interchanging rows of raised and sunken black dirt and leftover stumps from former corn stalks, now dry and sticking a few inches out of the earth. Vast and flat and lifeless. But a sudden movement caught my eye, so I leaned forward to peer slightly to the left out through the windshield, hoping for maybe a deer. Nothing. Another movement at the far corner of the field caught my attention. I glanced forward at the road, adjusted my steering wheel, then glanced back at the field I was about to pass. The whole field began to quiver and shake in a million flutterings like the disturbed surface of water when a school of frenzied fish fight for food there. I blinked. Larger, more purposeful movements erupted just before the whole field seemed to separate from itself and levitate. As I passed by, I stared out my driver's side window, watching the levitating field break apart and take flight. The largest flock of geese I've ever seen had been resting there, perfectly blending in. They had, just as I was passing, somehow communicated to one another that now was the time and then moved in consort, flapping persistent wings, stretching graceful necks, taking formation in so many Vs that all pointed south, all vocalizing the distinct honk that will only ever bring me back to these years in Vermont should we ever move away. I forgot rhyme and verse. Utterly speechless, I just laughed. The presence of God overwhelmed me with nothing short of sheer delight. I felt like a kid, completely content and, like the world around me, at rest.
Some of my relatives in Texas, where I grew up, like to tease me by asking when I'm coming back to "God's Country." I love the back-and-forth bantering and being able to laugh with the ones I love. I also love that Texas is God's country. And so are Vermont and Guam and North Korea and Russia and every other spot on the planet and off. The truth is, some days all we really see are so many gas stations and office chairs, but He's still there. And some days the glory of His creation, whatever and wherever it is, shouts His praise and testifies of a mighty creator. Either way, He is there, and there is rest. And I'm blown away.
There had been a mix of drizzly rain and big slushy snowflakes coming down periodically throughout the day, but now the road and the chilly air were still and dry. Maybe they hadn't gotten any precipitation yet further north, the direction I was headed. The song kept tumbling around my thoughts and my spirit. Low, thick clouds clung to the evergreens on the hillside to my right, thin clouds just above them rising slowly up the hill. To my left, clouds hovered right above the black waters of Lake Champlain in the distance, just beyond the small-town silhouette of St. Albans, the town where I exited off the highway. I still had a good 40 minutes of driving left. I was reflective and inspired, lost in one of those moments of heightened expression and appreciation that make a person feel sure they're about to solve the world's problems. I was enjoying Yahweh's presence. "The mist on the water rises up and over the green hilltop's trees, and I see. You. There."
The two-lane, country highway I now drove cut a curved line that respected the landscape. It's all corn fields and dairy farms. In summer, you can never pass anyone, because you can't see past the next curve. A thick growth of corn stalks over 7 feet tall lines the highway and blocks your view, so when you get stuck in an impatient line of cars behind a tractor doing its best at 15 miles an hour, you just have to wait it out. It's refreshing to have the stark reality of a farmer's pace force you to reconsider your own. But this day, this gloriously still, gray day, fell in what we call down-leaf time. All the fields are empty and resting. Unless you spot a patch of aromatic evergreens, the trees are inky black veins, barren and bold, stretching crookedly upward and outward. The leaves are gone. Everything is now uncovered and slightly more vulnerable, yet still strong. Without the soft green layer of leaves taking the edge off, the land shows its hardy fortitude. Once hidden streams and land features become apparent, revealing themselves fully for what they are, in addition to any changes that might have occurred in the last year, good or bad. No facade, no front. Seasons of down-leaf time, as in nature, come in life too. "Sure strength, open elegance in Your creation when all is exposed, and I know. You're. There."
Then something interrupted my thoughtful reverie. One field I was approaching on my left was a smaller patch that lay, like everything else, empty. It was familiar; we passed it every day. All that it retained from its fruitful summer growth season and subsequent fall harvest were its interchanging rows of raised and sunken black dirt and leftover stumps from former corn stalks, now dry and sticking a few inches out of the earth. Vast and flat and lifeless. But a sudden movement caught my eye, so I leaned forward to peer slightly to the left out through the windshield, hoping for maybe a deer. Nothing. Another movement at the far corner of the field caught my attention. I glanced forward at the road, adjusted my steering wheel, then glanced back at the field I was about to pass. The whole field began to quiver and shake in a million flutterings like the disturbed surface of water when a school of frenzied fish fight for food there. I blinked. Larger, more purposeful movements erupted just before the whole field seemed to separate from itself and levitate. As I passed by, I stared out my driver's side window, watching the levitating field break apart and take flight. The largest flock of geese I've ever seen had been resting there, perfectly blending in. They had, just as I was passing, somehow communicated to one another that now was the time and then moved in consort, flapping persistent wings, stretching graceful necks, taking formation in so many Vs that all pointed south, all vocalizing the distinct honk that will only ever bring me back to these years in Vermont should we ever move away. I forgot rhyme and verse. Utterly speechless, I just laughed. The presence of God overwhelmed me with nothing short of sheer delight. I felt like a kid, completely content and, like the world around me, at rest.
Some of my relatives in Texas, where I grew up, like to tease me by asking when I'm coming back to "God's Country." I love the back-and-forth bantering and being able to laugh with the ones I love. I also love that Texas is God's country. And so are Vermont and Guam and North Korea and Russia and every other spot on the planet and off. The truth is, some days all we really see are so many gas stations and office chairs, but He's still there. And some days the glory of His creation, whatever and wherever it is, shouts His praise and testifies of a mighty creator. Either way, He is there, and there is rest. And I'm blown away.
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