Tag: Mary

What Love Looks Like

On By vickleaIn Christmas, Holidays, Scripture, YouVersion AppLeave a comment

From the YouVersion Bible App Devotional, “Advent, Day 23”

What Does Love Look Like?

At the beginning of the week, we asked these questions:

  • What do you think of when you read the word “love”?
  • How would you describe love to someone else?
  • How would they know you were being loving through your words and actions?

How would you answer these questions after spending time reading about Jesus’ examples of love, and looking at Old Testament stories?

Often, we think of love as a happy, warm feeling that makes us feel good. We might consider a time when someone showed us kindness or made us feel seen. But love is so much more than a feeling.

Love is following Jesus’ example of loving everyone as valuable and worthy of sacrificial care, and we have many examples of people practicing God-honoring love throughout the Bible.

Today, let’s take another look at Jesus’ parents, Mary and Joseph. Mary was chosen by God to have His Son. But Mary and Joseph weren’t married, so everyone had their thoughts about what had really happened. Mary and Joseph had a decision to make about how they chose to respond to God, and they made the choice to love Him.

Mary served and loved God by joyfully responding to God’s call with faithful trust. She could have been bitter, angry, or frustrated. Instead, she embraced God’s purpose for her life because she knew the character and nature of God. She wasn’t trying to earn His love by having Jesus, but knew she was already fully loved by her heavenly Father.

Joseph chose to stay with Mary and raise the Son of God together. This decision took courage and trust. He could have turned his back on her. Instead, he cared for her throughout her pregnancy, maybe even bringing her soup and crackers to help with morning sickness. His love translated to outward actions and loving care.

Together, they would end up making a 90-mile journey when Mary was nine months pregnant, ultimately ending with baby Jesus being born in a barn.

Through Mary and Joseph’s story, we learn that we don’t love others by accident, but instead make the choice to care for them the same way God does. It’s looking beyond the mistakes or shortcomings to see the unique character God has placed in everyone. When we do, we gain an even greater understanding of the love He has for us.

Pause and Pray:

Gracious Father, thank You for sending Your Son through Mary and Joseph. Thank You for the unique ways they chose to trust and love You. I believe everyone is valuable and worthy of sacrificial care. Please help me to love You and the people around me with the same steady faithfulness. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Joseph was an obedient servant of the Lord who looked beyond the circumstances and chose to believe and obey God. How often do I only look skin deep and choose to go my own way? Too many times to count! I pray to be more like Joseph, open to hearing God’s directions and following them no matter how it inconveniences or embarrasses me.

I know for certain that I am not nor will I ever be like Mary, the Lord’s mother, who was a teen when an angel appeared to her and gave her the news that she would give birth to the Messiah. God looks on the heart and knew that Mary would be a willing servant. I hope that I am getting more like Mary, but some days I look at myself honestly and know for a fact that I would have scoffed at the news from the angel and wanted some kind of proof about what was going to be happening to me. I am not there yet, but I am still on the road of faith and that’s a big deal for me. I like to think that God is pleased with the progress that I am making, but sometimes I know He is disappointed when I take a step back instead of forward. May we all learn to look at God through the eyes of faith of a young, unmarried virgin whose reply to the angel is to be emulated.

An Unexpected Change of Plans

On By vickleaIn Christmas, Holidays, Scripture, YouVersion AppLeave a comment

From the YouVersion Bible App Devotional, “An Unexpected Christmas”

Day 2: The Unplanned


You may be familiar with the next portion of the story. You’ve likely heard of the virgin Mary. It’s tempting to consider her as just another character in a story. But consider for a moment the real Mary.

She was a teenager. She didn’t have an iPhone. She wasn’t studying for her SAT or considering her choice of colleges. As a first-century Jewish girl, she knew what the future would hold for her. She’d soon marry a nice guy from the village and raise a family. Within this context, the story of the first Christmas continues.

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 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. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.” “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.(Luke 1:26–38)


This was not part of Mary’s plan. Can you imagine Mary as a teenager grasping the weight of this conversation? First, an angel appeared to her. She had to wonder, Did that really just happen?Then she had to face the reality of what this news would mean for her. She had to consider, What will Joseph think? Then, What will my parents say?


Despite uncertainty or fear, Mary responded that she was willing to do whatever the Lord asked of her. She showed her willingness to trust God even when it cost her something. With her words, Mary displayed her heart to serve God and not herself.


Mary would have never written this plan for herself. But it was part of God’s plan. It was part of a great story God was revealing… in histiming and in his way. 


This past year has had unplanned moments for all of us. For some of us, the unplanned moments were inconveniences. For others, this unplanned season has left us hurting, grieving, or concerned for our future.

An angel may not appear to you this Christmas season. But, as followers of Jesus, we will all be faced with a choice similar to Mary’s. How will we choose to respond to the unplanned?


As Christmas approaches, are we trusting in something or in someone? What could it look like for you to trust God in a deeper way this season?

My Thoughts

I don’t think I have ever considered Mary to have just been living her life as a young Jewish teen when Gabriel appeared to her. But, after reading it in the devotional, it makes sense to me. God calls the unlikely to do the unexpected in order to carry out His plan and then He equips them to do what He has called them to do.

I don’t know about you, but I generally get frustrated when I make a plan and then have to change it because of unseen circumstances. Honestly, I used to tell God how upset I was with Him that I had to change my plans when I thought He could have done something to help me carry them out. God has had to deal with me and my rigor for years, so I know He is used to it, but He has also been helping me to be more flexible, to expect changes. I don’t like them, but when they happen (as they usually do), I don’t fall apart because of it. I am getting better at “rolling with the punches” that life hands out and then praying and moving on. I am amazed that young Mary was able to accept the proclamation right away and told God that she was His willing servant. That shows me that God chose her for a reason! Perhaps He had already prepared her heart or He knew how much she already loved Him. I am not there yet, and may never be, but I aspire to be like Mary and just say, “Okay, God. Let’s do things your way; I’m getting out of the way so it can happen the way you plan.” Instead, I try to help God make the plan and He doesn’t need my help at all. In fact, I have never had God ask me for input into His plan. It’s His plan that we are supposed to all be working toward fulfilling and if a few glitches in our lives cause us to get off track, I am confident that in His grace and mercy, God will get us back on track instead of giving up on us.

A Mother’s Thoughts

On By vickleaIn Scripture, Song1 Comment

Since we moved so frequently as a military family, I have memories of each of my children in different places. I used to be upset that I didn’t have one home with all of my memories safely stored there with me. Nowadays, after suffering a stroke and losing part of my memories, I am thankful for all of the moves because I can see an image of a child in a place and know where we were and what was happening then. Tokens of their childhood are stored safely away in various places in our current home…the first haircut, the first tooth lost, the first report card. And each token carries a memory of being a young mother with a lot of love and not much knowledge about what I was doing.

That brings me to the Bible verse and a song for today.

The angels sang, the shepherds came to worship and Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus, treasured these memories in her heart. It boggles my mind that a simple girl was chosen by God to give birth to the Savior of the world. It mystifies me that Mary was a mother, just like me, with hopes and dreams for her child but also knowing that He had a destiny to fulfill and she was only a small part of it.

“Mary, Did You Know?” by Pentatonix

This is my absolutely favorite Christmas song because it incorporates the love of a mother for her newborn child and the love of the child for the entire world.

Cherish your memories and hold fast to to your faith that God has a plan for your life, just as He did for Mary, and that He will bring it to pass.

The Mother of the Savior

On By vickleaIn Scripture, Song1 Comment

One of my favorite Christmas songs is “Mary, Did You Know?” I think that is because I am a mother and I can only imagine how hard it must have been to be pregnant as a teen, giving birth to God’s Son and knowing that His mission on earth would be a short one since His destiny was to be the Messiah for all mankind. I recall when I was pregnant with my children, all the imaginings and hopes and wishes I had for each child. I cherished the moments with them when they were growing up, watching carefully to see the choices each would make and allowing them more freedom as they matured. What must it have been like for Mary, the woman who knew she was giving birth to the One who would sacrifice His life for all of us?

This verse gives us insight into Mary’s character as a mom. She, like many of us, treasure our children’s childhood, knowing that one day they will grow up, leave home and establish a life for themselves apart from us. Mary was a human mother who had all of the love of a regular mother for her beloved son, and like most mothers, she treasured the preciousness of her time with her child.

Unlike most mothers, though, Mary received a prophecy from Simeon when she and Joseph took Jesus to the temple to be consecrated to the Lord. The prophecy included the fact that she would one day suffer tremendous sorrow because her firstborn son would die. It is not the “natural way” of things that a child should predecease a parent, but that was part of Jesus’s destiny and God’s plan of salvation. How much did Mary know? Enough. But she still was willing to be obedient and give birth to the Messiah. She didn’t cower and say, “No, not me. Choose someone else to do this hard thing.” Knowing that the road ahead would be hard, she chose to be the mother to the Man who was also God, the One who would one day die on a cross with her watching beneath it. I admire Mary’s sacrifice and fortitude, but I don’t worship her because she is not God. She was a human whom God chose to use to fulfill His plan for all of mankind and her willingness is to be remembered by us all as the ultimate sacrifice of a loving mother and obedient servant of the Most High God.

Mary, Did You Know by Pentatonix

Have a blessed day as you ponder the real meaning of the season and the sacrifice that Jesus and Mary knew that He was going to make.

A “Mary” Christmas

On By vickleaIn Holidays7 Comments

I just could not stop myself from sharing from my devotional this morning from the book, Mornings with Jesus 2021. The lesson was about how Martha rushed around and resented the fact that Mary was resting at the feet of Jesus and just listening to him. This was like an arrow to my heart because Christmas has become a rush season to get shopping done, balance accounts and make sure that appropriate gifts are purchased and on the way to the recipients. This year has been extra challenging because I am caring for a baby and a three year old almost all day so my personal chores have to be done early in the morning or later at night. Anyway, I think I have been in the process of becoming a “Martha” when the person I really want to be a “Mary.”

That’s why I’m writing this post, to confess my shortcomings and to encourage you all to be a “Mary” this hectic holiday season. I cannot fathom the Lord rushing around from store to store (or even online) to get gifts or decorating or even planning holiday parties for various people. I can imagine Him going about His regular day of serving people and His Father, just being Jesus. In my human desire to help everyone make everything perfect for the holiday, I was beginning to lose sight of the reason for the season. But, not from here on! I am committed to walking closer to Jesus, getting to know Him better and listening for His voice, every day, but especially during this season of rushing around.

From the bottom of my heart, I wish you a Merry Christmas!

But from my soul’s longing for you, I wish you a “Mary” Christmas!

Blessings and prayers for you to remember the real reason for the season and to relax in His loving care.