I've often thought of Mary, the mother of Jesus, through the eyes I think I would have if I were a mother. I think I have largely viewed her as the bearer of an unbelievable burden, to birth and raise and mother the Son of God, whose purposes were so beyond the world of normal family life that...well, I just haven't imagined much of it beyond the focus of surprise, wonder, pain beyond bearing, loss, and confusion at what all just happened to me...the last 33 years.
Perhaps time would reveal more, as it does for so many of us. Perhaps that revelation would overcome the terrors of earlier days.
I read a description of Mary in a writing of a friend. She said, he wrote, "Joy came and found me and joy has never left." This got me thinking about my view of Mary, the work of Jesus, life itself. What causes me to see more largely the tragedy of life than the redemption running through it? I'm sure the answer is somewhat simple; something like the limitations of my humanity.
But considering Mary primarily through the lens of joy alters my perception of her experience as it defers to a greater one. One that I, too, must defer to. And when I consider that greater one, I am filled with something new, something alive, something more real than the realness that the pain of life seems to offer as our only expectation.
I am grateful for my friend's writing this morning. I am grateful for joy . I'm lifted up and into something by it.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know...
-- James 1:2
