These verses, spoken by Mary after learning that she will bear the Messiah, are a little intimidating to someone like me, someone who has returned to the faith after years of secularism. After all, Mary's response seems so more confident than mine ever would.
But, upon further meditation, I could not help but see the similarities between Mary's situation and the discovery of my own pregnancy, nearly five years ago. In December of 2011, I was 33 years old, in my second year of a PhD program in Arkansas after leaving a desk job behind. The summer before I had been seized with the proverbial "baby fever," and I went from being unsure whether I would ever have children to wanting one right now. Even now I cannot explain exactly from whence that longing came, but it was real to the point of being painful.
As Christmas neared, my husband and I decided to embark on a different kind of holiday trip. While we both love seeing our families, I was longing for some quiet contemplation, and so we drove to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where we spent our Christmas Eve without any outside obligations. We were free to just experience the world around us without the constant stimulation that often accompanies the holiday. On Christmas Day we drove to El Santuario de Chimayo, a famed Catholic pilgrimage site, where I lit a candle and prayed for a baby. It was an act unlike anything I had done for a very long time, but it was something that, to me, needed to be done.
After visiting friends and family in Colorado and Nebraska, we returned home to Arkansas and I found out that I was pregnant the very next morning. I suppose that that is where the whole idea of justice comes in for me. Of course, we all know better than to think that God makes everything great for his followers and everything lousy for everybody else; we know from Mary's own experience that things would be far from cushy for her. But, in that moment, in my confusion, I reached out to God and felt like I was heard. I was longing not just to be heard to feel worthy, to feel like I did deserve this. And I did feel that, which was perhaps the most just thing to happen to me in a long time.
