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The Advent Series-Day Three-Hope


Day 3: Hope

Luke 1:48-49

“From now on all generations will call me blessed,

for the Mighty One has done great things for me - holy is His name.” - Mary’s Song.

Pregnant Mary holding lantern

Copyright All images & writing © 2018 Charis Seed Photography All rights reserved

Mary most certainly had other plans.

She’s famous for being the birth mother of the Son of God. But before an angel appeared to her and announced that she was chosen to be the virgin mother of the long-waited Messiah, she was just a girl with normal dreams and aspirations. In the culture of her time, she likely dreamed of becoming a mother. Maybe as a young girl she formed a doll out of scraps of cloth and bundled her baby to back as she skipped about running errands for her mother. She smiled with pride when an old woman playfully teased, “Is that your baby? Oh, how cute your baby doll is! You’re such a good mother little Mary!”

In her youth, she likely watched pregnant woman be fawned over. Maybe she even knitted baby clothes as a gift for a neighbor while considering the names in her family she might hope her own children would carry. She dreamed of her moment when she would be the blushing expectant mother. To be smiled at. To be congratulated. To glow.

But those dreams were not to be.

While God had chosen Mary for the high honor of being the mother of the Messiah, God’s dream would ultimately replace Mary’s own dreams. Not every moment of this journey for Mary had an angel declaring the divine will of God. It would have been nice if God would have had that angel visit everyone in town: Maybe the angel Gabriel could have at least knocked on a few doors and vouched for Mary - “Yeah, that Mary girl, she’s got a crazy story about how she came to be with child, but I’m here from heaven to let you know that it’s a %100 percent true. So be nice to her, okay?”

But God didn’t send heavenly messengers to inform the neighborhood. God doesn’t even send an angel to tell Mary’s fiance, Joseph right away. Instead, Mary carries the salvation of the entire world inside of her while outside she is the recipient of shame and scorn. Not what she dreamed. These were not HER plans.

Can you relate?

Yet, in this moment, Mary never frets. Instead......she sings.

“From now on all generations will call me blessed.”

This song is the song Mary created to sing to herself. She’s not being called blessed in her town when she puzzles out the words to this verse. She used to be a sweet, young girl engaged to a decent man and now she’s an unwed mother claiming to be carrying the Son of God. People are probably calling Mary a lot of things, but the word “blessed” is not coming up too often in their conversations.

Mary’s song is a song of hope. A song to keep her heart anchored to the promise of what will be. Is this the song she sang when no other woman at the well would say hello? Is this the tune she hummed to drown out the whispers of gossip swirling around her? Did she whisper it through tears when she saw the pain and disappointment in her fiance, Joseph's face?

What are you facing? Maybe your life has suddenly taken a different path than you expected. Maybe your dreams seem pulled out of reach. Let’s look at Mary’s example. She wove into her song reminders of what her eternal future held. Then, she bravely sang that song to herself, pulling the promise of the future God gave her into hope for today.

What song will you choose to sing today?

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Copyright All images & writing © 2018 Charis Seed Photography

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