a "good" gift

it's Christmas. that time of year when everything seems to touch our hearts, when joy and love and laughter and times with family and friends fill the days, a time of hope and peace. it is a "good" time of the year. as Believers in Christ as the Son of the Heavenly Father, this time of year is special as we remember the greatest gift ever given to man...infinite love and mercy wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger.

the Bible only briefly touches on the hardship that mary and joseph experienced in being chosen to bear the Hope of all time. but, something i was reading the other day made me stop and think about it. mary was young, likely a teenager, being asked to bear her first child. she was pregnant, never having been with a man, but who was going to believe that...the proof was right there before everyone. in her culture, pregnancy out of wedlock was easily a stone-able offense but joseph initially thought to just divorce her. in her culture, divorce carried a very bad stigma. she faced whispers and rumors and divorce and death. she could have been disowned by her parents in a culture where the only means of income left to her due to her condition was prostitution or it's equal. joseph would have faced some of the same whispers and rumors and basically held mary's life in his hands...choosing between death and divorce. what a "good" gift given to them, right? but mary responded "i am your servant." and joseph chose to take mary as his wife b/c he was led by the Father.

we see (and rightly so) the greatness of the gift to mary and joseph and all mankind. but, next time we are tempted to whisper "where is God when it hurts?" or shout "a good God wouldn't allow this!" or doubt, perhaps we will remember that the greatest gift of all didn't seem so at the time. and yet, by entering into His purpose willingly, what joy! what blessing came.

merry Christmas!