I realize that Christmas has come and gone but I just wanted to share a thought that God gave me on Christmas evening.

Mary didn't get much sleep Christmas night either and as I sit here wide awake at 3am, I can't help but think of her. I don't know why I'm awake (being way to old to be listening for Santa) it is probably something much more self imposed, like too much caffeine and sugar. But Mary, she was awake and yet I can't imagine her exhaustion. Long trips wear me out but by donkey?!! Wanting the story to live for me like it did the first time I heard it, I sit here thinking of her as a woman, a friend, daughter, wife and then...mother.

Some of her story I can get my hands around. She was a woman without a home, but she was right where God wanted her, beside her husband. She chose to leave everything normal behind but worse when she said, "I will do this." some of her friends probably left her. Daughter...so many thoughts. She had to make them believe this was really the Son of God that she carried. How long did it take for them to remember her integrity? They knew her life well enough to believe. Then she was a wife. I am sure, if not before, then somewhere on that long journey she and Joseph became friends. Partners with a goal to obey God's request for their life.

While I sit here and miss my first born son who is going to have his first Christmas way from me, I marvel at the thought of her first born Son, sucking in his first breath and crying his first cry. And then I know all her sadness and the pain of childbirth seemed to vanish in that instant. That's why she was there, why she was put on this earth! That little baby is why we are all here. He is why we have to go to Haiti. So other can know that baby is God. So they can know His truth can forgive, change, heal, comfort, counsel... My heart is overwhelmed with the hope we have in Him.