He Wants Me?

“The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” 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.”  Luke 1:28 – 36

            How would you feel if I told you , you were a pregnant virgin that would bring to this world the ultimate Savior?  I’ll bet you’re reading this and saying ‘what?!’  Is that even possible? Well that’s what happened to me. I’m Mary, the mother of Jesus, and this is my story.

            I was 13 when the angel Gabriel told me I was to bring the Lord Almighty, our Savior to this earth.  I was shocked and scared at first. I mean, if someone randomly came up to you and said, ‘Oh, um, you’re going to be having a baby’ you would freak, because I know I did!  All sorts of thoughts ran through my head at that time. How was this possible? How would this happen?  I’m a virgin!  What would people say? What about Joseph, my fiancé, what would he think or do? And why did God want me? But pretty soon I realized what an honor it was to serve the Lord. I decided to let the Lord lead me through this; I was ready for anything He brought my way, because I was going to be the mother of Jesus the Son of God.

            Time went by and the word got out that I was pregnant. Boy, you can believe that wasn’t easy! In so many ways than you can count I was judged. Some people believed that I was unfaithful to Joseph and slept with multiple men. While others said I was a prostitute and other things you just can’t imagine. This was really tough for me because my good name was being torn down and I started noticing that Joseph wanted to break the marriage. I felt so alone, but I remembered that God was by my side and that He would never fail me. I believed that the Lord was by my side and would never leave me. So I persevered through this tough time and put my faith in God.

            The day when my suspicions about Joseph’s doubt about our soon-to-be marriage came to pass was when I started to doubt the whole Jesus thing. It happened a couple weeks before our actually marriage; Joseph told me he wanted to see me about something important. I got excited.  I mean he was my soon-to-be husband and he wasn’t bad at all. All that changed when Joseph told me he was breaking the engagement. If you’ve ever seen a small child throwing a tantrum you would think it was me. I couldn’t believe him.  Apparently he had been having these thoughts ever since the word got out I was pregnant. I was heartbroken. Why would God let this happen? I would get disgraced if my family found out. I was fed up; I didn’t want to be the chosen one anymore. I didn’t want to carry out the Lord’s plan for my life. It just wasn’t working for me. Something inside me didn’t agree with all that I said; something inside of me remembered what the angel said about the Most High God’s power overshadowing me, protecting me, keeping me, helping me. I would not let doubt run my life or a little set back stop my destiny. The next day Joseph came to my house.  He said he was sorry for breaking our engagement before and that we were getting married after all. He tried explaining to me about an angel who had come to him and that we were going to go to Bethlehem.

I will be giving birth to the Savior!  Through my journey I have realized that if we let God lead the way He will never fail us.

Femi is a grade eight student who loves to smile and laugh.