Mary, Did You Know?

"Mary Did You Know"
(originally by Mark Lowry (lyrics) and Buddy Greene (melody))

Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy would one day walk on water?
Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy would save our sons and daughters?
Did you know
that your Baby Boy has come to make you new?
This Child that you delivered will soon deliver you.

Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy will give sight to a blind man?
Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy will calm the storm with His hand?
Did you know
that your Baby Boy has walked where angels trod?
When you kiss your little Baby you kissed the face of God?

Mary did you know.. Ooo Ooo Ooo

The blind will see.
The deaf will hear.
The dead will live again.
The lame will leap.
The dumb will speak
The praises of The Lamb.

Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy would one day rule the nations?
Did you know
that your Baby Boy is heaven's perfect Lamb?
The sleeping Child you're holding is the great "I am"

Anyone who has birthed their first baby knows how close to death we come delivering a baby.  And, not many of us were in our early teens, away from home, most likely a cave, no drugs to give ease to it.  No mother or aunties or grandmothers to comfort her.  Joseph was old, and although he was told, did he remind her, during the labor and birthing, that she could do this, that she was giving birth to some Savior who would save the world?  Would it have mattered in the throes of birthing?  Did it matter that an angel told her this child was special?  Did that ease the fear and pain?  I, as a mother who has birthed the hard 33 hours of hard labor, cannot imagine riding a donkey right into the first stages of labor.  I was nineteen and the specialist said that I and my child would have died if I had had him in the olden days.  I was too young to even try to be sane during that time.  She was just a baby girl, yet, herself.  Did Whoever not have the power to ease her labor and make it not be the near-death experience?    Perhaps I am making hr too ordinary.  Maybe she was not a typical early teenage girl at the time.  But, the mother in me thinks that she knew who she was giving birth to, to some degree.  Gosh, an angel told her for goodness sakes.  But did she know it all?  

Did she nourish the baby from her breast and know she was nourishing who they say he was?  Did she count his fingers and toes and savor the ecstasy of newly giving birth?  Did she know, every time she changed his swaddling, whom he was going to be?  Did she grieve even watching him crawl for the first time, to take that first step, knowing every day brought them closer to unconscionable sorrow.  

Did she know those little fingers that curled around hers were the hands of God?  Did she know, with every tender touch, that this baby was never going to be hers and what he was going to have to do, how the swords would pierce her heart, how nails would be driven into his wrists?  Was she aware that, when she kissed that beautiful new born face that she was kissing the face of God's son?  I think she knew:  How incredibly horrible.  I think she knew.

Even in your early teens, you would know if an angel came (imagine how scary that was in the first place).  An angel told Joseph and he was a widowed man, older than her, for sure, and he would have talked to her.  In that time, in that place, she would have been an obedient girl to the will of men.  When she went to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, Elizabeth knew.  The wise men were on their way.  They knew.  She had to know something special was up because they took off to Nazareth.  Heck, even the shepherds are supposed to have known.  How could she not have? 

Was Mary a prodigy child, a child groomed for such?  Was she always told she had some special purpose?  Did she not play dolls with her little girl friends?  Was she kept from ordinary girls?  Was she mature enough to be able to keep the faith, of any kind knowing, she was delivering a child to crucifixion? There had to be incredible sorrow all the days of his life... all the days of her life. 

Giving birth matures a girl.  We all think our children are born for great things.  But, we are surprised when it happens, nonetheless.  Did she continue to believe that it was just a bad dream she had and that things would not turn out as they did?  In the end, she was the first to hold him at his birth and she was the last to embrace him before he died on the cross.  Could she ever reconcile such a vile act to this special child?  

Perhaps she did not truly know until he was resurrected.  This painting is inspired by my thoughts about that little girl.  What incredible sorrow if she did not know.  What incredible suffering if she did.  I cannot get past why she had to suffer so.

©Carol Desjarlais 12/1/18