Pondering these things.....

My favorite part of the Christmas story is Mary, pondering these things in her heart. Mary was young when she gave birth to Jesus. To have the maturity at that age to 'ponder' is rather remarkable. Most young women that age are very reactionary.
She had much to ponder. She had never been intimate - maybe didn't know much at all about intimacy, yet she gave birth to a child. She was away from home. In a stable. The Bible didn't say a midwife delivered Jesus, so perhaps Joseph did. The shepherds came, seemingly recognizing this special birth. How tired she must have been. How confused. Uncertain. She had much to ponder.
As I have matured, I too have become a ponderer. Sometimes I pick up a simple passage and think upon it. Wonder about it. I have become less reactionary. I remember the birth of my first child. Wondering what kind of a person he would grow into. Wondering if I could care for him properly. Michael Card has an amazing song, 'Mary's Song'. In it he talks about Jesus as a baby and having a certain cry that was different from that of being hungry. A deep, empty cry. As a baby, could Jesus sense that this was not His home? A cry so deep, so hard to understand.
I do not worship Mary, but she had to be an unusual young woman. A ponderer.