What about Mary?

It’s my favorite season of the year.  The time after Thanksgiving through New Year.  I love everything about it. The celebration of Christ’s birth, family, the get-togethers, the food, the laughter, the dreaming, the decorating…everything.  Well, maybe except snow.  That’s beside the point.

I find myself, every season, thinking more and more about Jesus’ mother Mary.  I often feel that she is sometimes forgotten.  She is an important person in this entire event.  Yes, the main focus is Christ, His coming, and what this meant for all of us.  However, I spend a lot of time thinking about the amazing woman that brought Jesus into this world.

I was looking through a gift catalog the other day and came to the figurine section.  One figurine caught my attention, and caused me to ponder Mary even more.  The figurine is of Mary and Joseph huddled together.  Mary is holding Jesus against her chest, with a blanket draped over him.  It brought me to tears.  The mom in me broke.  There Mary was, holding her first born in her arms, probably calming him and trying to get him to sleep.  She was feeding him, she was loving him, and she was hanging on to every moment.

Did she know?  Did she know what his life would bring?  When she looked at his precious face, could she even begin to fathom all that Jesus would face?  I think about the moments holding my own children, just like Mary in the figure.  I know the joy, the fear, the emotions, and the feelings that a mother feels in those moments.  She had to have felt the same.  And that moment that the figurine depicted absolutely broke my heart.  It also made me, as always, appreciate just how strong Mary had to be.

We often go into Christmas reading the Christmas story, not really stopping to think about the little moments.  I challenge you to read the Christmas story and think about those moments that came in between the words.  Take a moment to think about Mary and just how strong she truly was. Most of all, thank God for his gift of Jesus to this world.  After all, that’s what Christmas is all about.