Thoughts on women...

Read this here too on Life Church Seaford blog. When I read the bible, my eyes and heart are always drawn to the women in the text. There is so much to be learnt from them, and at Christmas, Mary's story is no different. Her story of how she came to be the mother of Jesus is told in Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 1:26-56 and Luke 2:1-40 but this is not the last we hear of her. As you would expect, as his mother, Mary was one of Jesus greatest human advocates here on earth, tending to him his whole life, confident in who she knew him to be. In this reflection I'd like to take a closer look at the character of Mary and see what we can learn from her. Early on in our journey with Mary we get an insight to who she really was. She was probably young, perhaps around 14 years old and betrothed to Joseph, a descendent of David. She was a young woman who feared God and knew the stories of her peoples ancestry. This is evidenced by her response to the angel Gabriel who appeared in her home and t...

Mary paused again as the back ache which had been plaguing her for the last few hours gripped her, causing her to grasp onto the donkey’s pack as she walked alongside. She looked up as the sensation passed and saw the outline of the town up ahead and sighed inwardly in relief, careful not to let Joseph hear her. He had been so kind and gentle with her since this whole thing had started and though she felt sure that he would continue to stand by her, she worried that it wouldn’t take much for him to take the advice of all their friends and family and reject her completely. He didn’t talk about it but she knew that the community was confused by his determination to stand by his pregnant bride to be. Many of his family could barely look him in the face and business had fallen recently, he was a skilled carpenter, taking pride in carrying on the family business, but he didn’t seem to waver. There were the faithful few though who seemed to trust his judgement however and whil...