Mary’s Message

During this Christmas season, I found myself thinking about some of the parrallels in my life to how Mary felt and reacted when she was told that she was going to give birth to the Savior:
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!” Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!” Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.” The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.” Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her. (Luke 1:26-38 NLT)
When I knew that my time at Target was coming to an end, I felt confused and disturbed and did not understand, but I felt God saying to me – “Don’t be afraid”. That night I journaled that I believed this change was driven to remove the “Golden Handcuffs” that I had at Target that would keep me from looking at other opportunities that God had planned for me. And while God’s plan for me is nowhere near His plan for Mary, her response is a lesson for us all: “I am the Lord’s servant”. This has been my prayer through this change in my life – make me Your servant. Help me to see what your plan is for my life.
While I have not had an angel come to me and tell me the plan for my life, I have had many of God’s people come and provide opportunities and encouragement about what the next step should be in my life. There probably won’t be a census that brings me to my new Bethlehem, but I do believe that there will be a door opened that God will call me to walk through and it is up to me to get on my donkey and go through the door and trust that God will provide for financial needs of my family.