Thanks for joining me once more for an Advent devotional.  Mary's emotions during her pregnancy, that first long Advent, reflect so many of our own emotions as we pass through life.  Some emotions are positive, like hope and peace, but others are less comfortable emotions like confusion and pain.

What is the worst pain you have ever felt? A kidney stone? Appendicitis? A broken bone? I have a tendency to block out muscle aches or spasms, but after eye surgery, I experienced pain that came in such peaks and waves of agony that for hours it was hard to catch my breath. I gasped as relentless pain stabbed my eye and made me writhe and cry out for relief. It took all my strength to master the pain.

When a woman faces the birth of her child, she has a first-hand opportunity to experience pain. The muscles tighten, pulling on the back and forcing the woman to double over. The contractions come one after another, closer and closer together until the beginning of one contraction overlaps with the end of the preceding one. Coping with those contractions requires all the woman’s capacity to focus.

As Mary moved through her labor towards the moment of delivery, she experienced...pain.

Bad as Mary’s physical pain was during that long night, it was short-lived compared to the pain she would experience many years later when she watched Roman soldiers nail her beloved son to a cross. It is awful to feel pain in your own body, but to stand nearby and see someone you love writhe in pain is agony of another kind.

In Isaiah 26:17-18, the prophet wrote about being in distress: “We were like a woman about to give birth, writhing and crying out in pain. When we are in Your presence, Lord, we, too, writhe in agony.” But just two verses later he says, “Yet we have this assurance: Those who belong to God will live; their bodies will rise again! Those who sleep in the earth will rise up and sing for joy!”

Whether your pain today rises from your physical body or from your heart, you still have cause for hope.

Advent is a time of preparation not only for the Lord's coming but for all our relatives' coming.  Family gatherings are an important ingredient of any holiday celebration.

As our family grew and as my brothers and I brought spouses into the mix, my single brother Richard often found there was “no room for him at the inn.” At family gatherings over the 4th of July, for example, my husband and I would enjoy the guest room at my parents’ home. Another brother and his wife occupied the screened-in porch. But Richard? With no space left inside the house, he would find himself assigned to a small cot in the garage. Old bicycle tires and fishing poles hung from the rafters. Piles of tools lined the walls. Mosquitoes buzzed during the night. Moths fluttered around the bare light bulb. The atmosphere was less than homey. I am grateful for Richard’s patience and flexibility in accepting our family’s equivalent of the “stable.”

When Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem, they too found the family homestead packed with relatives. The Jewish culture, after all, values hospitality. The guest room was already occupied by Joseph’s more senior relatives, and the young mother found herself occupying the lower levels of the home where the animals hung out. Her husband’s family was nearby, but as she faced those final days of her first pregnancy, Mary must have longed for the comforting presence of her own mother. Worse, Mary’s womb began to contract, indicating that she was moving into labor. Not here! Not now! But, yes, she was going to deliver that baby there and then.

With less than perfect accommodations, Mary felt...vulnerable.