I had let the Advent story become a script, where each person says a prescribed part. Gabriel says this, Mary says that. It had to go that way, didn’t it?

But reading Mimi Dixon’s Advent reflection helped me recover the humanity of young Mary and ponder the possibilities of the moment. Mary could’ve responded differently.

“When God breaks in we have a choice,” Mimi writes. ​“Embrace or reject, believe or doubt. Either we abandon ourselves to God’s path, the steps of which are only revealed as each foot is lifted in obedience, or we cling to our own path with its illusion of certainty.”

A few months prior, the seasoned priest Zechariah responded to news of a coming child with doubt. But Mary, barely a teenager and given news harder to believe, chooses to embrace her calling with a prayer that can quietly transform the world: 

Here am I,
the servant of the Lord;
let it be with me
according to your word.

Sometimes our own lives can feel scripted and that we have to perform certain parts at certain times — like getting caught up in the business of the holiday season. Richella Parham reminds us that it’s possible to choose simplicity even at Christmastime. And in part two of her conversation with Nathan Foster, she helps us choose community rather than comparison. 

Your fellow servant of the Lord,