Mary did you imagine it would be like this?

I don't know how she did it.

She got pregnant while she was engaged to a man, and it wasn't his kid. Her family knew it wasn't his kid and his family knew it wasn't his kid (or at least they all hoped that!) and everyone knew she was pregnant and still single. In a Christian family, that's just not the thing to do.

For 9 long months she carried the baby. Luckily for her, her fiance, after nearly backing out, returned to her and agreed to still marry her and raise the child as his own.

But, even married, that didn't still the whispers of how she'd surely sinned.

And it certainly didn't help that the rumor was that she actually believed she was carrying the Messiah!

How many Jewish girls had been told of the prophecies about the coming Messiah and Saviour? 'Born of a virgin". Every virgin girl had to wonder if she might be the one. Families were more prayerful about things like that then. They seemed to believe that every generation might very well be the generation.

Until the very generation came along that would bring forth the Messiah. It seems they were in a rut of 'looking', so that 'finding' became a stumbling block to them.

But here she was, a simple girl, pregnant, and not too highly looked upon for her condition either.

I don't know if she believed it would bring her glory or honor to be "the virgin" mentioned in prophecy, but during those days while her fiance was determining whether or not to put her away, she probably didn't feel 'blessed among women'.

Even making it through those 9 months, 30 years later she dutifully pushes her son into ministry. Maybe she was thinking "Finally! someone will know He IS who I said He is!" Only to spend the next 3 years watching him upset authority after authority and then, with so many people still not believing Him to be the Messiah, she has to watch Him be brutally killed.

Everyone tells me that after having a foster child for a year or so, it will break my heart to have her be taken back to her parents. But can you imagine having a child given to you for 33 years? Then watch His crucifixion?

If I were Mary, I'd want to close my ears those prophecies. I wouldn't want you to read them to me. I'd walk out of the synagogue when they started reading them. I would ponder things in my heart too, if for no other reason than I was afraid to speak my fears out loud. You can't look at your 3 yr old, 9 yr old, 17 yr old and imagine prophecies speaking of him being beaten, hair ripped out, and spit on then killed. You just can't do it.

I bet she didn't think about that part - none of us would - when she prayed that she might be that virgin, that 'blessed among women' virgin.

I wonder if she would do it again?