Mary

“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear." Luke 1:42

 This Christmas I am celebrating Mary. 

Relax, not in a sacrilegious way. I assure you Jesus can have all the other Christmases, but as an almost 9 month preggo lady- my focus for this go-around has shifted from the baby to the poor mother Mary. Somehow I have never really thought about all the nitty-gritty details of that night long ago where a teenage girl had to have a baby in a freaking stable of all places. How in the world did she do it?!!

First she had to ride for who knows how long on the back of a donkey. Actually I know how long- I looked it up. It's 68 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem. 68 miles ON A DONKEY. These days I get uncomfortable in my cushy Corolla after about 20 minutes. My back starts hurting, my belly is in the way, I have to majorly strain to hoist an extra 40 plus pounds into a standing position when I get out of the car... it's a real nuisance.

Waa waa right? Mary would have killed for a ride in a car. I can NOT imagine being thrown on the back of a donkey right now, bouncing up and down for 68 miles over rocks and rubble. It makes me nauseous just thinking about it. And how the heck did she take bathroom breaks along the dirt road?! I don't know about Mary, but my legs are so swollen right now that I can't bend down or squat without the skin behind my knees getting totally pinched together- it hurts! Not to mention, if I do squat down to pick something up or sit down on couch, I need help getting back up. Did she just pee standing up on the side of the road? Did she manage to squat down to do her business and her saint of a fiance' Joseph helped her back up? 

Where did they sleep while they were on this journey? I seriously hope they stayed at inns along the way and didn't sleep in a ditch somewhere. The thought of a 9-month pregnant Mary curled up in the grass somewhere breaks my heart. Stephen and I were talking about it the other night and I actually got tears in my eyes just thinking about it. Here I am complaining about how I can't get comfortable in my king-size bed with a snoogle, wedge pillow, and like 5 others pillows propped around me... and poor, poor Mary probably slept in the dirt. She's a hero.

I wonder what her attitude was through this whole miserable trip. Was she a typical grumpy pregnant lady, complaining about being so uncomfortable and how it wasn't fair that she had to travel this far when she was 9 months pregnant? Or was she calm and cool and just so excited to give birth to our savior? I highly doubt it was the latter, I mean she was a real lady, with real feelings and real pregnancy hormones. And this wasn't even the worst part....

The poor woman had to give birth in a stable like an animal! No bed, no climate control, no pain medicine, no doctor, no pillow, no blanket, no COMFORT. Instead she got dirt and hay, cows and sheep, and a stable in an unfamiliar town with no one she knew except Joseph.  

This is all in sharp contrast to the brand new maternity wing at Central Baptist hospital that Stephen and I toured a few days ago. It's a state-of-the-art new addition that just opened a week ago, with marble floors in the elevators, big flat screen TVs in all the rooms, Tempur-Pedic mattresses, and walls painted in soothing sea foam green and pale blue. It looks like a hotel more than a hospital. That's where I'm set to give birth in a few weeks... how spoiled am I?!

Mary did it in a stable.  

And she's teaching me to just shut up and stop complaining, and thank my lucky stars that I'm having a baby in 2016 and not 2000 years ago.  I don't know how she did it, but I sure am glad she did... and I get it- she's not even the star of the story. The real point is not that MARY gave birth like an animal, in a stable, surrounded by cows and sheep... 

but that JESUS, who is king, 
humbled himself to the point of being born like an animal,
in a stable, 
surrounded by cows and sheep. 

I'll remember that this Christmas... but I sure will remember too that He picked an AWESOME mom to bring His little human form into this world to save us all.