Pregnant. She was 13 and pregnant. No one, no one, was going to believe her story; not until Joseph received his own angelic visitor at least.
The angel came to her and told her she, a virgin, would conceive a child, a child not from man but from God. Mary’s heart was faithful and obedient but it must have been terrified too. She knew that her life now teetered in a precarious balance. She must have expected the horror and fury of her parents. Perhaps she envisioned the scribe her betrothed husband Joseph would hire, as was customary, to proclaim her shame in the streets. Her story would be told, whispered ear to ear time and again.
At night, Mary must have lay awake in the darkness imagining the other children calling her baby boy names because he had no father. She must have wondered how she could possibly provide for this child alone. She was hardly more than a child herself. After all, no one could really expect Joseph to believe her or stand by her side.
Or would he…
