When my first child was born, everything changed. The way I saw the world transformed in the blink of a twelve-hour-labor eye.
It’s the moment when I started to wear my heart on the outside of my chest – unable to watch the news because all of that reported negativity is someone’s child. All of those faces being bullied in schools across the nation . . . Those are someone’s children. And all of those men and women shipping out to the Middle East to defend freedoms we take for granted every day . . . Yes, those are someone’s children, too.
It’s then when I started to really think about Mary, the mother of Jesus, during the Christmas and Easter season. As His mother, I cannot, CAN. NOT, even begin to imagine the emotion she felt as the mother of the man chosen to save the world.
The way we just “know” when something is off with our child, the way we raise our hackles and want to pounce on anyone who dares to hurt our cubs, the way we desire to foster the development of their hearts . . . This was all the same for moms back-then, too.
And Mary was a mom “back-then.” Jesus was her son. When he skinned his knee, he went to Mary for comfort. When he couldn’t sleep, she rocked him and sang lullabies. When he was hungry, she fed him.
We don’t know the specifics because there is so much unwritten in the Bible – but I am a mother and I know we mothers have been wired the same for generations upon generations.
This love for Mary has caused some to jokingly call me a Catholic stuck in a Protestant body but I don’t think you have to be Catholic to appreciate Mary. I think you have to be a mom – of some sort.
Because you don’t have to have children to be a mom. Some mother classes of children. Some mother young girls in youth group. Some mother foster animals.
Motherhood is a state of the heart not a state of logistics.
I would love for you to join us for the Not a Silent Night: Mary Looks Back to Bethlehem
Because it is a short study (five weeks and easy, peasy reading) I would like to have all members added by Thanksgiving. Our first session will be on Monday, December 1 here on the blog.
Join me in committing to reducing the stress of the holidays? The frenzy. The consumerism. Instead, let’s embrace the true gift.
The gift that sets us free and restores beauty from ashes.
