Merry Christmas Eve!
Since my daughter Rylie was born a little over a month ago, my understanding of God’s love for us has increased. The amount of love I have towards Rylie is a small fraction of God’s love for us – it’s beautiful. But another thing I feel like I have a greater understanding of is Mary (Jesus’s mom).
Mary was a mother. She went through the struggle of pregnancy that all of us ladies face, and she went through a painful labor. Sure, she gave birth to the son of God (no biggie, right!? 😛 ) but she was still his mom. Religion can go so many different ways with who they think Mary was, but all I can think of her this year is that she was a mom too. She loved her baby boy with everything in her. She had dreams for him. Jesus was human, so I’m sure she had late nights, the joy (and sometimes challenge) from feeding him, and changing his dirty diapers (that’s right, Jesus went to the bathroom too 😛 haha). But just like every mom, I’m sure she loved playing and cuddling with him, and tenderly caring for him. Mary loved him as a son before she loved him as a Savior.
She was chosen by God to be his mother, just like we were chosen to be our children’s mothers. God gave them to us because He knew they needed us (and we needed them), and because He wanted us to care for them and raise them. Jesus needed Mary to be his mother, and Mary, along with the whole world, needed Jesus.
I can’t imagine how much pressure Mary felt since the moment she was told she was going to be the mother of the son of God. Who wouldn’t? She was pregnant without ever having intimacy with a man, she almost lost Joseph completely because of his fear, and even after all of that, she had to raise Jesus. Talk about pressure and wondering if you’re doing the right thing!
But this Christmas, along with celebrating our Savior’s birth, take a minute to remember who birthed him – who fed him, kept him warm, snuggled him, kissed him, raised him.
So shout-out to all you moms out there! We may not be Jesus’s mother, but we are mothers and we are raising children who will hopefully one day have a desire to love and serve Him.