1. The Christmas Stories: Mary

2. The excitement at having a part to play in a God-Story is immeasurable, and Mary found herself directly at the center of a chapter in His story that was the most important revelation to that date. Her response? Trust, gratitude, and commitment.

3. Mary serves as a template for us in response to God, gladness and overwhelmed thanksgiving, but the reality is that we must also include the mess of it all. God prioritizes His end goals and His purposes, while we are tempted to prioritize the details and the character’s comfort in the middle of the epic.

4. Mary’s life would never be the same, everything about the trajectory of her lifestyle had been altered. She was now misunderstood and likely mocked, shamed in her community, about to endure incredible difficulty in order to please a ruling government, and unaware of the experiences she would have as a mother to this Child over the course of the next three decades.

5. Are all of the circumstances that make the story painful to witness, the messiness of it all, worth the end result of the arrival of Messiah in her world? Was the community’s scorn, perhaps even her own family’s disappointment, worth the big-picture world changing impact her initial obedience and reception to being a part of God’s story had presented?

6. Are we accepting the mess of our character’s life, remembering the eternal purposes presented in following Jesus and sharing His life and love with our world?