UNEXPECTED SURPRISE!

We've been waiting to make the announcement of becoming foreign missionaries before we shared some other news in our family... Christmas Eve Day, God gave us a little surprise: we found out we’re expecting baby #7!!! Having six kids, one might wonder how many of them were surprises but this is actually our first. We had talked about whether or not we should try to have another baby earlier last year but my plan was to wait. God got a kick out of that one! “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the decision of the Lord that endures.” Proverbs 19:21

It's been comforting to me, actually, to become pregnant unexpectedly because since this wasn’t our plan (and looking back on my chart, I don’t know when it would have happened!), it’s clear that this new person has come into being because God willed it and has a particular plan for him or her. It’s incredible to think about how this person could only have been conceived at this time, and no other! And that, although Robert and I cooperated in being open to new life, we don’t and never will get to decide when a new person comes into being. That's God's call. He creates who He wills. Doesn’t that blow your mind? No person is ever really an accident or an “oops” because they were always known by the God Who gave them life.

Now, the timing of this pregnancy threw me for a loop at first. The baby is due just 18 days before we'll start our 3-month Intake in Louisiana. I've gone early, on time, and late with the other pregnancies so it's anyone's guess when this baby will be born. The day I found out we were expecting and estimated when the due date would be, I was glad that it wasn't going to be during Intake, at least, but wondered what it was going to look like being in transition already and then having a new baby on top of it all. I prayed the Joyful mysteries of the rosary three days later and it was while meditating on those mysteries that our Blessed Mother comforted me. She understood what I was going through. She herself had to undergo SO much more.

She was surprised, too, when she found out that she was going to bear God's Son. And at such a seemingly inopportune time: she wasn't even married to Joseph yet! Nevertheless, she trusted in God and said “Yes” to His perfect plan. Can you imagine what she was thinking and feeling after the angel Gabriel left as she tried to comprehend what just happened? Can you imagine how she felt when the Holy Spirit came upon her and she conceived Jesus in her womb? I can't imagine that that moment came and went without her knowledge. How incredible would it be to know that the Son of God is being entrusted to you! Instead of fear and apprehension, she responded with great joy and gratitude.

Then, just days before she gave birth, she and Joseph had to travel to Bethlehem from Nazareth, which was 80 or so miles with rough terrain. This is always depicted as her riding on a donkey but Scripture doesn't actually say that. It's possible she walked. Either way, it would have been a rough trip to make at 9 months pregnant, and they barely made it to shelter before she gave birth to Jesus.

Mary didn't get to have him in the comfort of her own home. Instead she was given a barn filled with animals (think about those conditions, the smell). She couldn't lay him in his own little crib in the nursery she spent hours decorating and preparing, no doubt, with all the latest and greatest baby gear and essentials from Babies 'R Us (this was her first baby, after all, and it was the Christ Child, for crying out loud! He deserved the best!). Instead of a crib, she was given a trough to lay him in. Family wasn't even around to come visit and dote on this precious new baby of hers. Instead, God sent angels to tell the good news to nearby shepherds – complete strangers – to come visit and adore His only Son. I wonder what Mary thought about all of this. All we're told is that she “kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19).

Then, forty days after Jesus was born, Joseph and Mary make the trip to Jerusalem to present Jesus to His Father in His Father's house (the Temple) before returning, presumably, to Bethlehem, as the story of the Magi and flight to Egypt would not have taken place yet. We don't know how old Jesus was when the Holy Family finally returned to Nazareth, which was where Joseph and Mary would have called home, but older than two, perhaps even four years old.

In meditating on all of this, I became less concerned about how everything will work out in having a baby in the midst of transition. I realized I don't have to have everything figured out, just like Mary didn't waste time trying to figure out all that would happen in the days after the Annunciation. All she concerned herself with was being God's humble handmaid and faithfully give her “yes” to Him each day. He would work out the details. Doesn't He always? Maybe not in the ways we might expect but then again, His ways are better than our ways.