The Colour Trouble: Seeing 
Through Mary's Eyes

We were all raised to keep ourselves pure, wait until marriage before you eat the fruit, obey God’s laws and fear His name. I am not perfect. I tried my best. I took time out to pray and wait on God; we were supposed to be praying for the coming of the messiah. The prophecies were like sing song, no one really bothered about them anymore.

The night the angel visited, I was praying, trying to get in the groove but my mind was wandering. Sometime into the prayer, the presence of God came in heavy, I was afraid; did I do or say anything wrong? Could God be punishing me for my stray thoughts? As I was rolling this around in my mind, I heard the salutation “Hail thou who art highly favoured.”

The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.” (Luke 1:28)

I was petrified. Glued to the floor, I was quaking. I was only a child and he was talking to me as though I was a woman. The being proceeded to say some very weird things; He knew me by name and claimed he had a special message for me. I dared to ask some questions and he did not mind giving me answers, that further troubled me. I could only assent even though none of the things he said made sense to me. I mean, he was asking me to go on an uncharted course, no girl my age had been known to carry such an assignment.

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; 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 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 Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. (Luke 1:29-35)

I can only submit that the presence of the being who later told me he was an angel made me accent to everything he was saying. He was kind enough to intimate me of my senior cousins’ situation too. He even told me to check her out; she would encourage me as she too has had a visitation from God. Before he left, I asked him how all he was saying would be. He told me God the Holy Spirit would overshadow me and God’s power would ensure the promise came to pass. At the end of the encounter, I agreed to be a surrogate mother.

Everything he said, I kept in my heart as I sensed that the journey would be long and hard and I would need some reassurance as I journeyed on. Even though Angel Gabriel's coming filled me with fear, nothing prepared me for how hard, lonely and full of controversy my journey would be.

Fancy telling Joseph, I got pregnant by the Holy Ghost. He tried his best to be noble about the news but his best was to break our engagement secretly. How secret can being single and pregnant be? Then he came back and said he had forgiven me and promised God he would not disgrace me publicly. He would cover me instead, but he would not be intimate with me until the baby was born. I was heartbroken but grateful; at least his presence would shield me some….

 

what special duty have you been required to carry out? Do you find like Mary that you have to tread in untested waters? Are the promises of God showing up like trouble in their manifestations? Take heart beloved, Mary's assignment benefited mankind. Yours has in it the potential to do the same.