For some, the holiday season is gray. The season’s brightness casts shadows we hoped time had erased. Its glow reminds us the shadow’s original is real. What causes life to dim may still be with you.
I’ll go first.
My life plans, well, haven’t gone as planned. Passing time seems to parallel growing distance from their possibility. This holiday season, I’m realizing: Mary’s life did not go according to her plan. But, the unplanned, inconvenient, and painful chapters of her story did not end in darkness. Despite her unplanned, undesirable experience, light and life won.
Before studying her story, there are a couple clarifications to consider. First, “unplanned” here does not mean predictable consequences of irresponsible choices. “Unplanned” refers to unexpected consequences of good decisions. Second, I don’t believe God (or “love”, per 1 John 4:16) causes painful circumstances, although He may allow them. Love and free will work together. Real love can’t exist without free choice, and free choice includes separation from God. Painful circumstances are a result of separation from God in a broken world.
Back to Mary’s story. God had a plan, even though it may have been unexpected to her at the time. If you, like Mary, have trusted God with your choices, and your unplanned circumstances are inconvenient or painful, Mary’s story is for you.
Mary’s life is interrupted by a troubling stranger who brings life-changing (life-changing for Mary and the entire world!) news. This stranger shares she’s going to be pregnant with, not just any miraculous child, but the eternal king. Mary responds: she’s the Lord’s servant. In an instant, when her life is about to change forever, she doesn’t hesitate to follow God.
You’d think the eternal king would be greeted with grandeur. Instead, Mary gives birth in a place made for animals. She has to flee her homeland to escape a powerful government official who wants to murder her son. Mary avoids her son’s death then. But, about thirty years later, she watches her son suffer a cruel death.
If I were Mary, would I trust God enough to follow Him into inconvenient and painful circumstances? In light of her unplanned and agonizing experience (gave birth where animals live, fled the authorities to save her son, and watched her son suffer and die), I don’t know if I would have maintained confidence in God’s promise. I question His faithfulness in the unplanned.
Mary made no small choice to follow God’s plan, instead of hers. It cost her: socially (a pregnant, unmarried woman; perhaps, some thought her son was a lunatic for claiming to be God), practically (she had to escape to Egypt; she had to raise a child), and emotionally (witnessing your child die a piercing death).
Mary chose to drop whatever plans she had for a much greater one. Hundreds of years before Mary, a prophet said, “Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” Isaiah 7:14. The details of Mary’s life may have been unplanned to her, but God had a plan to save the world with His own sacrifice.
My life is immeasurably less consequential than Mary’s. But, I pray I’ll recognize His voice and abandon my plans in an instant to follow Him. I don’t know the details of His plan, but if Mary’s story is any indication, His plans are worlds better than mine.
This holiday season, I don’t want to miss the best story with the light of His glory—a light that erases every shadow and brings life and color to a gray, broken world.