Mary, Mother of Jesus

The book is fiction. But the author, Lesley Hazelton, has painstakingly tried to find out as much truth about Mary, or Maryam, as can be found. Not a lot is written about Mary after Acts 1:14, when she was in the upper room with the disciples. Of course there are the written accounts in the Gospels and about Jesus’ conception and birth and even how he was raised, but really beyond all of that we don’t know much more about Mary’s life before and after Jesus. Lesley had always pondered what became of Mary and really after a night of discussion at Titus 2 I had some questions too. So on one of my recent trips to the library I did a little browsing and stumbled upon Mary, A Flesh-and-Blood Biography of The Virgin Mother.

In the Introduction Lesley explains why she will be calling her Maryam, it is the more accurate name and spelling. Also the author explains how she has put some of her story together. Obviously since there really isn’t much recorded history written down to do a thorough biography, but Lesley was able to do a lot of research about the time frame that Maryam would have been a live and can kind of piece together what life would have been like during her time on this earth. And also Lesley explains why she wanted to right this book.

The first thing that jumped out at me was in the first pages of the first chapter; actually it was more accurately within the first few paragraphs:
The air is fresh outside. A coating of dew makes everything sparkles in the half-light. She pauses a moment to breathe deep, automatically checking the sky. The direction of the wind, the color of the sunrise, mist down in the valley or clouds on the horizon – any or all of these will determine which way she takes the herd. The decision is hers. (emphasis mine).
The paragraph goes on to talk about the animals and describes the bumps, bruises, and scratches that come along with caring for these animals, but the phrase I really like was “The decision is hers” Like everything else the decision was always hers, yes granted God could have picked another lowly servant girl to give birth to Jesus but he didn’t he chose Mary and instead of telling her that he had impregnated her with his child the scripture leads you to believe in Luke 1:35-37 that Gabriel came down and told Maryam God’s plan and it wasn’t until she said "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said," that the conception actually took place. Now I am of the mindset that if Maryam had argued or asked that she not be the one to handle this burden than God would have moved on or maybe given her some more time because God knew what would become of Maryam’s child and the heartbreak that she would endure. THANK GOODNESS she did decide for as we all know the rest is history.

I am going to obviously going to continue reading this book and as I have new revelations I will share as much or as little as I can.