“Waiting can be hard.”
The words stung Mary with a force that made her wince. She turned to face her grandmother, who glowed in the doorway, both from the setting sun and her predictable wild and mischievous smile. Mary turned back to the beans she was shelling.
Waiting was Mary’s whole life. She didn’t know what she could do but endure it. But somehow her grandmother’s smile made her feel like she was missing something.
Mary had been waiting to become a woman so she could marry her betrothed. He was a good man, they all said, Joseph the carpenter, which was good because Mary had no choice. Everything was all planned out. All there was left to do now was wait for him to take her home with him whenever he was ready. And yes, waiting was hard, especially when you’re that last of your friends to cross the threshold into womanhood and marry.
Mary’s grandmother had recently come to live with their family, because her husband had been killed. Mary felt incredibly awkward around her grandmother because of the pain surrounding it, and also because of her grandmother’s persistent joy.
That evening as the family huddled around their meager meal, Mary closed her eyes in prayer. She felt the dance of the flame that lit their home through closed eyelids. Mary savored the dance, feeling it beat inside her, unpredictable and free. Mary sighed, and a silent, wordless longing rose to her Maker. She wanted to dance like the flame, not to her own tune, or everyone else’s, but to her Maker’s. Mary knew Yahweh to be predictably surprising, like her grandmother.
When she finally opened her eyes, Mary could feel her grandmother’s gaze. Feeling bold she dared to lift her eyes and meet it, even smiled back into the loving face. Mary took a deep breath, one that was not a sigh, and savored the smells of her mother’s cooking, mixed with her father’s sweat. She pondered how much her little brother’s laugh sounded like the donkey’s bray. She wondered how many more nights like this she would share with them.
With that last thought Mary’s momentary joy vanished.
That evening as she lay upon her mat, Mary fixed her eyes upon the stars filling the window. It was her habit, how she prayed, with her eyes open and fixed on the greatness of the Maker. She knew all the stories: how Yahweh had spoken to Moses and led his people out of slavery with a cloud by day and fire by night. She knew the promise that He was coming back to rescue them again. Mary closed her eyes against the pain as she thought of her father’s many scars earned defending the innocent, of her grandfather’s death. When would help come again? More waiting! Mary turned her face to the wall and cried, silently, so as not to wake anyone in the tiny home. Her prayer was simple, “Please come. Please come!”
The next morning Mary went to the well for water, as she always did, without thinking. It was her job. That’s why she was surprised to find her grandmother there, drawing water already.
“Good morning, Mary. Would you like a drink?” Mary froze, trying to figure out if she was late and in trouble. But the caring look in her grandmother’s eyes relaxed her.
“Yes, thank you, Grandmother,” Mary said politely, taking the offered cup.
The old woman sat silently for a long time, watching Mary drink. Finally she said, “My Mary is troubled.”
“Yes, I am, Grandmother.” Mary’s finger raced around the brim of the cup. Her grandmother gently put a hand on top of her racing one to calm her, then lifted Mary’s chin to meet her gaze. “Tell me everything child.”
“Oh, I don’t even know where to start. I am so tired of wondering, Grandmother. I waited through years of hearing my friends tell their stories about entering womanhood. Years of thinking it could be any day! And now I am here and still I am waiting. Even though I am so weary of the waiting, still I am afraid to enter into a whole new life. And one that seems like such drudgery. I do not want Mother’s life, I am sorry for saying it, but I don’t. I want more than the next step. I want deliverance from all our suffering and oppression. I want Grandfather back.” Tears streamed down Mary’s nose and onto her grandmother’s shoulder as the old woman pulled her to.
“I don’t want to wonder whether Father will come home every night,” Mary went on through her sobs, “because he stands up for what is right like Grandfather did. But at the same time, I want Mother to have courage and stop cowering in fear, hiding behind the next meal. I want Yahweh to show up and set us all free! That’s what I really want more than anything. When will Yahweh show up for us, like in all the stories, Grandmother? I know He is able to help us! He is!”
Mary took a deep breath, inhaling her grandmother’s scent. It was familiar, and yet hard to pin down, just like her grandmother.
The old woman stroked Mary’s hair in silence for a long time before she began to hum a song. It was an old, old song she’d sung to Mary her whole life, a song of the Promised One. Mary let herself sink into the song, as her grandmother had taught her. She imagined herself swimming in, and then floating on the promises that carried her on the tide of hope. Only this time she reached the beach and she saw Him, the Promised One. For a split second in her mind he was real, real in every way and so familiar!
“It is a good thing to quietly wait, to hope for help from Yahweh.” The old woman raised herself. But Mary was still treasuring her vision. “You are a fortunate girl to see the way you do, Mary.” Mary studied her grandmother’s face, wondering how much she knew. She pondered her grandmother’s words. For an instant she could see how the waiting, the longing, was good.
Then her mother’s call cut through the moment like a sword, “Mary! I need water. What are you doing, girl?”
That afternoon as Mary was kneeling in the garden, carefully weeding the new little shoots, an instantaneous cloud blocked out the sun. The air felt electrified. Slowly Mary rose to look around. She had heard the old ones tell of a time when the sun had been blotted out and her mind raced to this strange occurrence. But what she saw took her breath away.
A man hovered above the earth, so radiant with light that she had to shield her eyes. Then he spoke, “Greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you!”
Mary sunk back to the ground, shielding her eyes, and wondered what on earth this greeting meant. Why was the Lord coming for her? Was she about to die?
But the angel went on, reassuring her, “Mary, you have nothing to fear. You have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great, be called ‘Son of the Highest.’ The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. He will rule Jacob’s house forever; his kingdom will never end.”
Mary gazed upon the angel, awed and overwhelmed by what she had just heard, until a matter of practicality hit her. “How will this be?” she asked, “since I am a virgin?”
The angel laughed, and it was the most beautiful sound Mary had ever heard. Still she strained her ears to hear his reply. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, the power of the Highest hover over you. Therefore, the child you bring to birth will be called Holy, Son of God.”
“Oh,” Mary breathed into her hands.
“And did you know,” the angel went on, “that your cousin Elizabeth conceived a son, old as she is? Everyone called her barren, and here she is six months pregnant! Nothing, you see, is impossible with God.”
Mary’s heart soared as she saw what was happening. God had heard her prayers, and He was coming to save them! He was fulfilling His promises, the ones Grandmother sang about. The Promised One was coming, into Mary.
“I see,” Mary replied looking into the angel’s eyes, “I am the Lord’s servant, ready to serve. May it be with me just as you say.”
Then the angel left her and went back up into heaven.
When Gabriel returned to heaven all eyes were peeled, waiting for his entrance. “It’s a go!” he sang for all to hear. The joyous raucous was deafening. But Gabriel flew through the commotion looking for Jesus. He was going to miss him. He had to say goodbye.
Finally Gabriel found Jesus. He was donning a modest human body for his farewell party. Gabriel could see hints of the young girl he’d just talked to in his face. “Wow,” the angel breathed, studying this new man.
“So,” Gabriel put a hand on Jesus’ shoulder, respectfully, and affectionately, “How are you feeling?”
“Excited as any kid at Christmas,” Jesus winked.
“Huh?” Gabriel scratched his head, until he finally gave up trying to understand. “I’m going to miss you, man.” Gabriel winked back.
Jesus laughed, and gave a little nod, “Until we meet again.”
Jesus was excited. He had been waiting for this moment, well, forever—or at least since time began. He was going to get to experience the limited life of created man. He looked over at his Father, always at his side, and felt an unfamiliar pain.
God the Father stopped and looked into Jesus’ deep brown eyes. “You will learn to see me, as they do.” Jesus nodded.
“And hear you?” he asked, feeling child-like already.
“As they do,” God the Father smiled with warmth that melted any hint of pain. “Nothing can separate us, my Son.”
Jesus stood with God the Father on the pinnacle above the heavens. Below the angels sang with jubilation, and beauty, beyond human imagination.
“Remember,” God the Father embraced his Son, “I love you.”
Jesus smiled, “Alright, let’s do this!” And with that he dove from the pinnacle of heaven with a shout of joy. The Holy Spirit caught him in strong wings and transformed him into a seed, which he delivered to the body of a willing young girl.
Cedar: (from #38)
I woke to the sweet, inarticulate sounds of my toddler babbling in his crib. That’s one of my favorite sounds in the world–listening in on him when he doesn’t know he has an audience. It’s so cute and happy and innocent, and it’s so unique to toddlers. My experience with sleeping adults is that they don’t wake up and immediately begin talking happily to themselves. Even older children don’t. It’s a characteristic of particular adorableness that toddlers wake up doing this.
It also always makes me wonder what my toddler wakes up thinking about. What is all that babbling about? Who is he babbling to? Usually he’s holding a stuffed animal, so one can only presume that he’s babbling at it, but what is he telling it? Is he remembering dinner from the night before? Looking forward to breakfast? Was that book about Curious George in the candy shop so riveting that he’s still wanting to discuss it the next day? Has he figured out how to reconcile Jesus’s perfect divinity and complete humanity? This question of what occupies the minds of incoherent little children is among the adorable curiosities of toddlerhood, whose answers we adults may never be privy to.
I love walking into his room and seeing his cheerful attention turn towards me, hearing his delighted laughter as he stands up in his cute little jammies, ready to be plucked out of his bed and carried out into the world to start the day. Usually he only grabs his blankie as he departs his crib, but on some mornings he decides, for no apparent reason, that he must bring every single one of his stuffed animals with him. This adds up to quite a few animals because, for further inexplicable reasons, he keeps adding to the number he insists on taking to bed with him at night. (Maybe that’s not so inexplicable. I’m pretty sure I did the same thing as a kid. Genetics, friends.)
Whatever the reasons, this morning was one of those mornings. The delighted laughter quickly gave way to visible anxiety that we were maybe going to leave some animals behind, and he plopped back down in the crib and began grabbing every single one and hurling them over the railing onto the floor. He then tried to chuck his own self over the railing to get at them. I rescued him from that disaster-waiting-to-happen and plunked him safely down on the ground, and then he bent over and tried to scoop all of the animals into his short, chubby arms. Sloths, bears, rabbits, blankies–they were a force to be reckoned with, and they proved to be more than he could manage. So with a sigh, I scooped up the majority of them, and he followed me out of his room with the rest.
The unfortunate thing about this whole rigamarole was that, because both his arms and mine were full of stuffed animals, I wasn’t cuddling him, as I usually do. So in his sudden desire to have ALL THE ANIMALS, he missed out on getting to be carried and snuggled by his mom..
We deposited the animals on the floor of the play room, where they proceeded to remain for the duration of the day, serving no purpose except to trip us up as we walked in and out of the room.
Like my flesh trips me up as I try to follow the Lord.
How many mornings does God invite me into His presence, and I smile with gladness, and then go on to say “Hang on, I need to bring all of this with me”? And then I waste time grabbing my pride and my self-awareness, my phone and my social media, my makeup and my image, my clothes and my materialism. I grab all the things I think I want, and I miss out on the true intimacy with my heavenly Father that I so desperately need. And meanwhile, the things I bring along do nothing but hinder me in my walk with Him.
Do I think my toddler was sinning when he wanted all those animals? Absolutely not. It was adorable and sweet and ridiculous, and it’s one of the endless reasons I love him so much. But it would NOT be cute if I behaved that way, and oh my goodness, I am appalled out how very like a toddler I can sometimes be.
When I go to get my little boy in the morning, I have a relatively clear picture of what the next five minutes will look like, and the next hour, and even the next 24 hours. He only knows what RIGHT NOW looks like, and RIGHT NOW he sometimes wants all of his animals and will sacrifice better things to get them.
But while I may have more of a big-picture perspective than my toddler does, my view of things is pretty narrow compared to eternity. And like my son, I tend to believe that the things I want are wise, and that I know best how to satisfy the desires of my heart. I pray that God will help me see past RIGHT NOW and give me the grace to leave my little comforts behind, for the greater and richer comfort of His presence.
Elisa (from Challenge #9. I edited it but didn’t expand it by much.)
It had been cold when Lana and her five-year-old brother Benji left the house, but the sun was bright, and walking made them warm. They were on their way to their first day at school, walking hand-in-hand.
“What if it isn’t fun?” Benji asked, with a whine in his voice that came from being nervous.
Lana shrugged. They each wore a backpack, heavy with their lunches and slates and books.
“I’m scared,” Benji whined.
Lana was very kind-hearted, for a seven-year-old, but she wasn’t worried about her brother. She didn’t wonder, the way their mother did, whether Benji’s fear of school would get worse instead of better. Lana didn’t think about all the words that might be spoken to Benji at school, all the eyes looking at him, all the eyes not looking at him. She didn’t think about these things or wonder what unspoken impressions they would leave on him. She didn’t wonder if Benji would be fine or not. Why shouldn’t he be fine?
Lana wasn’t excited about school. Nor was she dreading it. She had barely thought about school. Even now she was thinking about other things. She had built a fort in the woods next to the creek and had spent all last week trying to make a water wheel out of sticks. She had been unsuccessful, but never doubted that she would succeed, eventually. School was interrupting her work, and this annoyed her.
“Don’t be scared. I’ll be there,” Lana finally answered Benji, and gave his hand a squeeze.
Benji sighed. They trudged along silently for a while. “It’s far,” Benji complained.
Lana picked up the pace and tugged his arm. “Keep up. We’ll be late.”
Benji took a hop to get back in pace with his sister. He looked through the trees next to the path. There it was again—the bottom of a wooden staircase, the rest of it winding away out of view, a smiling face leaning out—
Benji kept looking at where it had appeared, as he and his sister moved along, his eyes darting among the trees, craning his neck, until Lana tugged his hand again. No use. Gone in the blink of an eye, as usual.
Benji sighed again. “What if the teacher doesn’t like me?”
“She’ll like you if you do your lessons.”
When they got to the edge of the wood they could see the school house. It was a long white building with a gray roof. There was a large door exactly in the middle of its long side, with four windows on either side of the door.
A woman dressed all in gray was leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed.
Lana pulled her hand out of Benji’s as they reached the steps leading up to the door.
Benji shyly dropped behind Lana as they ascended. He was trying to put Lana between himself and the teacher. Miss Lively’s dress was the plainest dress he had ever seen. As plain and flat as a sheet. He stole glances at her face. Five steps going up into school. Twice he glanced at her. Then they were inside.
It was a single large room with two rows of long desks. Benji was aware of some kids already there, older kids, just a few. He had to concentrate on the room before he looked at the kids. He had to see into all the corners of the room; then it wouldn’t feel so large. Lana saw that Benji had stopped in his tracks, so she came back for him, beckoning. She put her hand on his shoulder and marched him to the front row.
“You sit here,” Lana said to him authoritatively, putting pressure on his shoulder until he sat down. “I’m in the row behind you.”
Benji turned around and watched Lana sit down. He watched other kids come in. He saw green outside the door. He saw Miss Lively lean over from outside, and look in. Benji whipped around to face the front of the classroom, his heart pounding.
Miss Lively had a wonderful face. Her eyes had looked right into his when he was on the steps. The corners of her mouth had smiled.
Andrew Bentley sat next to Benji. Benji knew him from church. He was squirmy and talked to people without looking at them. He interrupted everybody a lot and never seemed to feel bad when he was scolded. Benji was in awe of how Andrew Bentley didn’t feel bad when he was scolded. Andrew Bentley didn’t know Benji’s name.
Benji saw the vision twice more that day, which was more often than usual. Once it was inside—that had only happened one other time—usually he saw it outdoors. For a moment a door had appeared beside the blackboard at the front of the classroom, with the same smiling face peering out of it, sideways, as though leaning way over. It was male, and young, and wore a cap, and was laughing silently at Benji. But Benji liked the laugh. It was laughing the way his mother had laughed when they went looking for the man Benji had seen in the woodshed. Benji had trailed behind when his mother went in. She came out laughing. “You saw the old scarecrow,” she said, in a voice that meant all was well.
The door and the face were there for a split second. Then they were gone.
The second time was outside at lunch time. Benji had seen the edge of the wooden staircase behind a tree, the smiling face leaning sideways as usual. He circled the whole tree carefully, but no trace remained.
Suddenly Miss Lively was beside him.
“What do you make of this tree?” she asked him.
Benji was too shy to answer. He dropped his eyes.
“It’s a wonderful tree,”
Emily H … from Challenge 23 … I got a bit further
The challenge: End of the Quarter! Choose something you’ve written in the first 38 weeks. Edit it, expand on it, finish it, or illustrate it this week. Repost it here by Monday, Jan 1 at midnight.
Suggested working time: at least one hour, all at once or divided up.
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