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What About Mary?

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Photo Cred: Joecy Mijares

 

*This post was originally written for Know Your Value by Wonderfully Made.

Every little girl who goes to church at Christmastime wishes she could be Mary. Age 9, 10, 11… Girls want to be Mary in the Christmas plays they watch and stories they hear. Mary, an innocent girl, chosen and well favored by God, to carry the baby Jesus, the Savior and Messiah. An angel visited her and she said, “Yes.” She went on an adventure with her new husband and even got to ride a donkey! We know the end of the story, and to us, to the little girls she is honored and venerated.

But what about the big girls? Do the big girls look at Mary and wish to be her, a chosen, favored girl tasked with an enormous responsibility and life change?

To be honest, I haven’t until recently. I wanted to be well favored and chosen for sure, but when it actually comes to living my life for God, as His servant and tasked with hard things, I cower. I ignore Him. I whine and complain. I make excuses for not stepping up in certain situations. And then to top it all off, I cry at night because my life is not what I dreamed it would be.

To be sure, in my heart, I’m God’s servant and loyal follower. I’ll volunteer and give my time and I’ll work wherever and do whatever for Him because I love Him.

But do I really with my actions? It seems I put up a fight when His plans and my plans do not align.

Mary was a teenager when she got engaged to Joseph. Perhaps, like other young girls throughout the generations, she dreamed of marrying this man of her dreams. Perhaps when he looked at her from across the street her stomach flip-flopped a little. Perhaps she pictured giggling with her friends and putting on beautiful attire on her wedding day. Perhaps she imagined their lives together, the children they might have, what they might name their kids…

Then, Gabriel, an angel of the Lord, came to Mary and told her that she was chosen. She stood out and God wanted her to be the carrier of His Child, whose name is already picked out. At this annunciation, she asked just one question, “how is this possible as I am a virgin?” The angel told her that all things are possible to God, “the power of the Most High will overshadow you,” (Luke 1: 35). And she responded, “may it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

REALLY?! That’s it? No other questions? No complaints? No worries (at least not expressed in the biblical document we read today)? No “let me think about it, you’re asking me a huge thing, and I’ll get back to you”? No selfishness over this rather ginormous wrench in her plans starting out her life with her new husband? Perhaps if I were there, I would have said to her, “Girl! Hold on a second, THIS IS YOUR LIFE!” …Or is it?

I’ve done all of that and more as I’ve felt God pushing me to walk into daunting situations. And nothing so life-changing as having a baby!

I picture Mary at Christmas with my little girl eyes, walking across a church stage with Joseph, or sitting serenely in a nativity scene. With that little girl perspective, I wish I was so good and honored that God would choose me to do something big for Him! Then, with dubious “grown up” eyes, I wonder have I ever been that brave and trusting of God in painful, hard experiences? When He’s asked me to do courageous things, have I ever responded simply, “may it be as You have said” without questioning, balking, or looking back?

Mary was brave and honored, and not just through her experience of carrying the Son of God, but in her whole demeanor and total acceptance of His plan and of this “wrench” in her life. She loved Him more than her own dreams, reputation, and fiancé.

She recognized that His plan, Gabriel, the virgin birth were not a wrench in her plans, but exactly where she was supposed to be, at His time doing His will.

This was His plan; her life was not her own.

I see it even more in the song she sang to her sister-in-law, whom she visited soon after finding out about Jesus.

“My soul exalts the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For He has had regard for the humble state of His bond slave; For behold, from this time on all generations will count me blessed. For the Mighty One has done great things for me; and holy is His name…” (Luke 1: 46-49).

Mary, at such a young age, knew that her whole reason for being was her God and her soon to be Son, Jesus.

Friends, you might not have an angel sit with you to deliver a message from God, but I encourage you to think like Mary this Christmas. If God asks you to do difficult things and join in on His plan with action, think about saying “yes” openly as Mary did. Be them hard or sweet, His plans are always good.

The Perfect Statistic.

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The day after Thanksgiving, that beautiful day the US knows as Black Friday really was black for me.

I live outside of a small PA city, a good 25- 30 minutes down a two lane, windy, country road to a closet community where there are houses and not much else.

Except for deer. There are always deer. Farmland and woods make the perfect setting for deer to eat, graze, and live in peace. The road however poses a problem for the deer as cars cruise 45- 60 mph down this road. Throughout the year, each month of each season, dead deer dot the road here and there.

I’ve lived in this area for over a year now, passing deer so many nights. And I’ve had some pretty close calls with hitting deer, but I always felt blessed that it never actually happened.

“No, no deer, you stay there!” I’d say to the deer as I zoomed past. One time I honked my horn at a deer to spook it from the road, which did nothing, the deer stood there and just looked at my car. The saying “a deer in headlights” is a true statement. They stare blankly at your car, stiff, until the last second, when you don’t know which way they’ll run, if they run at all. Countless times the deer have either stuck their neck out and run the other way, or galloped passed and I was blessed enough to see them and hit the breaks instead!

Not this Black Friday. A car and I passed each other on this two lane road, and I was blinded enough to miss the deer running across the road right to my car. I hit the breaks, but not fast enough. The doe was huge, and her rump hit the passenger side of my car with a “Bang!” and sounds of broken glass.

I pulled over, turned my blinkers on, and waited a second to calm down before assessing the damage.

Honestly, I was lucky.

Broken glass, a bent hood, blood and fur, the passenger side of my car was, is, a mess, but even hitting the deer I was blessed.

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My car is driveable. I’m not hurt. And the truck behind me, which was inches from hitting me when I slammed on my breaks, swerved to the side and zoomed into the night.

I called my brother for advice on what to do, the deer had run off into the cornfield to my right, so I was left alone to the damage of my car and delayed evening plans.

I spent the evening making a claim with my car insurance and researching deer accidents.

I discovered that Pennsylvania makes up for 10% of all deer accidents in the USA. November is the most likely time of the year to hit a deer. Between the hours of 5pm and midnight are when deer are most active and people won’t see the deer as quickly, which pop out of nowhere.

When did I hit a deer? 7 pm, November night, in PA.

“A perfect statistic,” I whispered to myself that night after researching.

I was immediately taken back to a day when I sat with a college professor over lunch and told him a pretty painful family situation that was going on at home in Pennsylvania, while I was in school in California.

With a mouthful of salad I said to him, “I feel like a statistic.” His immediate response, Communications professor that he was, “You know, saying you are a statistic sounds like victim language. You are not a victim.”

At the time I felt like a victim. Of loss. Of change. Of a hopeless situation that I was powerless to help. Why couldn’t he see that and have sympathy for me? I was a victim to the situation, or so I thought.

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Fast forward three years, no longer fall of my senior year in college, but fall of 2015 when I hit a deer with a car, statistically this was bound to happen. But I am not the victim of the situation. I am blessed.

Blessed that the car was not more damaged.

Blessed to not be hurt.

Blessed that I have a wake up call to contact my insurance company about better coverage (they aren’t going to pay a dime).

Blessed that I am more aware of deer than ever, and to not take risks looking at my phone, or adjusting the radio on those windy roads. Deer pop out of nowhere!

Blessed that my brother was available to talk me through what to do, and that my mom allowed me to borrow her car when I needed that night.

Bad things happen. And sometimes you can even COUNT on bad things happening statistically. But what is your mindset in those moments? Are you the victim of what’s happened around you?

“If only that other car didn’t blind me.” “If only I had called for better coverage a month before when I first thought of it.” “If only I didn’t live so far out of town where deer run rampant…”

Or do you see the blessings of an exhausting, expensive, discouraging, and sometimes painful experience, to wake up and act?

My goal is not to wallow as a victim, but to think and act as an overcomer with more to learn from life’s little lessons, and to asses my own language and mindsets.

Maybe it didn’t need to take 3 years for Dr. Spencer’s words to make sense and hit home for me, but I’m honestly smiling that I am still learning from the professor whom I haven’t seen in so long.

He was right. My life is so much more than even the perfect statistic.

Football.

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I grew up with brothers, four of them actually, and no sisters. But instead of knowing all the ins and outs of American Football, from living in a house of boys, I knew next to nothing of the game. I think it stemmed from seeing the guys and their friends watching a game, sitting down with them, and then trying to understand by asking tooooo many questions. Their aggression and “Shut Up” that they threw my way turned me off from learning much.

I never played football, so I didn’t learn it all at practice! The immature boys that they were didn’t have patience to help get me into the game and from elementary school till middle school, I don’t think I ever watched a full game.

I remember to this day, a conversation I had with a friend in third grade. I asked her, “Do you ever watch football?” “Yeah sometimes with my Dad.” “How do you know who to cheer for?” “I don’t know, I usually just cheer for whoever is losing because I feel bad for them.” I tried to take her advice, but I still didn’t get the perfect formations of men facing each other, charging into chaotic dog piles seconds later!

The first football game I watched the whole way through was the Patriots vs. Eagles Super Bowl game in February 2005. I was with my Dad traveling out of the country; that whole day he scouted out places and talked to locals about where to watch the game and to be honest I thought it was fun! I’ve made it a point to take part in whatever super bowl parties I could crash with friends through the years, but only because I’m an American and the Super Bowl is like a religion in the US.

But I still didn’t ask questions through all those years of Super Bowl parties.

I learned my lesson years before; you don’t get between a man and his game, unless you want to be yelled at.

Sad, but true.

Until recently.

After a year of networking to get my foot in the door for TV Production, I finally “settled” to look locally in the small town I’m from, State College, PA. Through friendly connections, I got an interview at WPSU for Sports Production. During the interview, the Producer asked me two questions I for sure thought would get me kicked off the site in a hot second.

“Wow, you have a lot of experience in production, we have students that come here with nothing. How much do you know about football?”

“Ha ha. Ummm. I know what a touch down is!”

“So not much?”

I shook my head, smiling, hoping to win him over still. “But I can learn! See, I have four brothers, I could sit down with any one of them and go over game stuff!” Really though, I was dubious with the flash backs from all the traumatic times I tried getting my football questions answered by the boys in the past.

But he didn’t have to know that.

“It really just comes down to vocabulary!” I persisted. “I’ve grown up around sports.” (True) “I’ve watched enough to know what’s important in a game. It’s all about vocabulary, and I’ll learn.”

He smiled at me. The interview continued. I left concerned.

That night I sat down to watch the episodes he emailed to me, from three sports shows that WPSU produces. After watching, I figured I didn’t have anything to lose and I emailed him exactly what I think of the shows and football… That there’s a lot more to the game (football, basketball, soccer, you name the sport) than just being on the field playing; there are players, coaches, and other aspects of their lives that are more important than just being an athlete.

The next day, the Producer emailed me to let me know I would be brought into WPSU as a Sports Production Intern to work on the show Unrivaled: The Penn State Football Story.

Whatttt?!

I’ve watched more games this season than the previous 6 years combined. At Beaver Stadium, I’ve stood on the field with players, coaches, and ESPN and BTN press. On my down time, I study the Penn State football players, and watch the shows we produce. I get a little bit tickled each game to watch the boys play and see how they do. And as I promised in that interview, I’m learning my vocabulary.

It’s all paying off, as 6 weeks into the internship I found out some pretty great news about my status of “Intern.”

But that story is for another time.

I’m putting the work in, seeing the results, and quite honestly, I’m proud of how I’ve embraced my time at WPSU. By working there, I see State College through a whole new lens, and this football season, I’m actually into it! The disdain for the school and people that obsess over their Blue and White team has ebbed away to appreciate the culture of college football everywhere, and to be proud to be a part of a certain PSU football show.

I’m learning that if you give something enough time, you might surprise yourself with what you come to appreciate… For too long I held the sport and Penn State at arms length, creating a very effective wedge between the people in this town and myself. My tastes buds are changing so that a game and a beer sound appealing. Except minus the beer. My taste buds aren’t changing that much, let’s not get crazy.

What was originally a last resort and shot in the dark, application and production interview, has turned into a new perspective, relationships, and way of life for me in State College… Oh, and I’m no longer afraid to ask questions.

What have you pushed away, that you could practice being open to, which might further your career, or simply create bonds with others?

Episode 6 from this season: