Well-intentioned as I was, eight days into the advent season we fell behind. Max and Jack had to eat three day's worth of chocolates, we speed through the missed devotions, and we had to recount the paper chain and tear off four links at once. As I lay in bed reviewing my lengthy wish-I-could-do list and trying to weigh it against reality, along with my discouragement for letting more than one ball drop in all that I was juggling, I wondered about Mary...Eight miles into their journey to Bethlehem for the mandatory census, did she want to cry from exhaustion and just turn around and go home? Eight months into her pregnancy, did she wish she was not with child? Did she long for the simple life she had imagined living - the wedding she had dreamed of to Joseph, the home they were going to make together, the children they would have once they had settled into their marriage? Eight days after giving birth to this baby boy, and receiving strangers who came to see him, did she wonder what she had gotten herself into? As she traveled with an eight week old, not to her hometown of Galilee, but to Egypt because of Joseph's dream, was she frightened? As she raised an eight year old, did she look back and feel like she had failed, or was failing as a mother to this boy? How did this young girl from a small town and a simple life press on through extraordinary circumstances to literally live for Jesus, the Christ child?
In my own family, my mom and dad were engaged on August 8th (8-8) because there are eight letters in "I Love You". I pondered the significance of this. Love is the reason why Mary must have pressed on. She loved God and in her response "I am the servant of the Lord," she surrendered her whole self to that love and all it would require of her. But her journey would have been impossible if she had not known the love God had for her. He chose her for this special purpose, this amazing journey. I'm sure she never fully understood for what reason, but she was picked to be the mother of God's own son!
In my own life as a mother of young ones, love for my children is why I still get up in the morning even though I had far less than eight hours of sleep. This is why at the eight-o-clock hour I kiss the boys goodnight and then fall into a chair with exhaustion but only for a moment and then carry on and prepare for the day to come. This love is why I still nurse my little boy back to health after eight days of a stubborn cold. And this love is why I might bake eight dozen cookies for my kiddo's Christmas party. But to elevate my life to Kingdom living? To place myself on a path of the unknown, the uncomfortable, the sometimes scary things it will require, how does one do that? I don't know the how in each moment, but I do know this - it requires that I love God and knowing, with deep certainty, that He loves me. Look to Mary, she was a quiet and steady example of how a woman and a mother might live for God's Kingdom!
Father, may we also say "I am a servant of the Lord". Amen
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