Mary receives many confusing messages in Luke’s Gospel: You will bear a child. This child will be our salvation. A sword will pierce your soul. Mary doesn’t understand these messages at the time. Perhaps she won’t fully understand for months or years–until she holds her child in her arms, or stands weeping at the foot of the cross.
In the time between, she ponders. She holds these words, perplexing and unclear, in her heart.
I wonder how it felt to hold those words—if she thought she would never fully know their meaning. I wonder whether God’s promises, shrouded as they seem to me now, will make sense to me in time.
-Margaret Ellsworth