Advent, Week One

Wow -- Sting singing my favourite Advent song. Amazing.

During Advent, I often think of Mary: very young, very pregnant, travelling, perhaps frightened and missing her mother and wondering what she got herself into when she said yes to the blindingly bright angel who appeared to her.

My oldest son, A., was due on Christmas Day 2001, although he chose to wait around until the New Year. That Advent, as I dealt with trying to put on my -40C boots and to find a parka that would fit over my mountainous belly, I often thought of Mary, riding a donkey for days on end, swollen and sore and uncomfortable. I was "young" too -- at 24, I was most likely a decade older than Mary had been when she carired our Lord, but 24 is a pretty young mother now. I wondered what I had gotten myself into. Imagine what she must have been thinking.

When she said yes, did she have any idea that she gave the rest of us the Gift of Eternal Life? As she carried her unborn son to Bethlemhem, did she wonder if God, the One who had given her this child, had abandoned her? I don't know, but I think Mary at 14 was a lot wiser than me at 24. There's a reason she was chosen to be the "most highly favoured lady" when she was really still a child.

Happy Week One of Advent -- and thank you for saying yes, Mother.