MARY, MOTHER OF JESUS

Mary, the mother of Jesus, was willing to be obedient to the point of ridicule, mockery, gossip, social ostracism, scorn, and rejection because she regarded the treasured promises of God in her heart as more valuable that a life of acceptance by man and ease of this world.

Although not many of us receive an angelic visitation to foretell what is going to happen, almost all of us have had a premonition, a vision, a prophecy that foretold of things to come and have, with our human frailty, thought that we understood what God was telling us, only to find that the reality had a very different outcome in the physical. This was the same for Mary, who was told of her Son that ‘He will be great and eminent and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob (Israel) forever, and of His kingdom, there shall be no end.’ Luke 1:32-33

Her life is the epitome of steadfast faith in God’s promises, even when everything played out so very differently from what she and those who received the message of the Messiah’s birth anticipated and instead turned into a time of testing and great difficulty as the Truth brought division among the people, to such an extent that this Son who was to reign forever is nailed to a cross and she had to helplessly look on as her Child hung there, bleeding and in unimaginable pain, until His last breath.

Although we are not privy to her innermost thoughts, she was not elevated to another level, but a woman like all of us and would have had the same tormenting thoughts and doubts and uncertainties that we face when we have the promise of God’s plans for peace and well-being and not for disaster, to give us a future and a hope and yet all things seem to be going in the direct opposite direction and what are we to do in this situation?

Even kneeling in terror and weeping at the foot of the cross, Mary did not doubt that Jesus would be King, showing that her eyes were not on the race, but on the finish line, the end result that God promised her and her faith was rewarded by being called blessed among all the generations as her Son took his rightful place at the right hand of God.

Precious sisters, our lives are in an ever-revolving cycle of change and if we are to allow the circumstances to dictate our faith, we will be in serious trouble. This is why the Almighty lifts us up like an eagle’s wings until we are close to Him and we can be reminded that His ways and thoughts are not like ours and that we can trust Him. What are we to take away from Mary’s life? That even when ridicule and disdain are shown to us, even when things seem to be going in the wrong direction, we can have steadfast faith because the outcome of God’s promises is not based on how it is achieved, but on the faithfulness and ability of the One who made the promise.

Written by Anna-Mart for Women of the Word

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