Mary.

i love the Christmas season.

i love the reason I celebrate it.

i love that i celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

i love that celebrating Christmas reminds me that Easter is why Jesus came to Earth.

I had a baby boy in August of 2007.  

my first child.

my first son.

i remember being in tears at Christmas that year.

reading and thinking about the very first Christmas eve.

thinking about Mary.

a young girl.

never even been with a man and now was to be carrying a baby.

i think about her feeling the baby growing.

the baby moving.

i think about her traveling, not by plane or car... but walking, to a distant town.

with many other people.

some she knew, some she did not.

feeling the weight of the baby.

heading to a crowded little town.

aches, pains, joy, fear.

she was going to have a baby!

i remember that thought passing through my mind quite often.  

sometimes it brought fear, sometimes excitement.

then... no bed to sleep on.

into a stable.

with the animals.

still probably better than some people got.

stinky animals.

i remember my sense of smell was do heightened.

was hers?  surrounded by the animals.

then it comes time to have the baby.

that young girl now delivering a baby.

i like to think that someone in the town was a midwife of some sort who was able to assist her.

it would have been quite scary for her.

the fear she would have had, going through it all.

and then, she got to hold her baby.

her son.

the memories of the Angel Gabriel's words probably flooded her as she admired every single inch of him.

"You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.  He will be great and will be called the son of the Most High.  The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."   Luke 1:31-33

she snuggled him, fed him, kissed him.  

then wrapped him in a cloths and lay him in a manger.  

an animal's feeding trough.

she would provide for her son the best she could.  

and a manger was the best at that point.

my first Christmas holding my son i thought about Mary. 

an ordinary young girl.

but used by God to carry and raise His Son.  

she would love him dearly.

she would care for him.

what she truly expected he would be like and what he was like... 

i don't know how similar they were.

maybe this is why when i first heard "Mary Did You Know?" brought tears to my eyes.