Dec 23, 2018
Mary was young, poor and probably not especially attractive. She lived in the rural area of Nazareth and came from a family with no great social influence. Like most young women of her time, she would have been happy to marry a man she loved and please God by being a godly wife and mother. Greatness doesn’t have to come out of great surroundings. Mary was probably a teenager when she met Joseph. In Jewish marital customs, after meeting him and spending time together, Mary would then make her feelings about Joseph known to her father and he would present Joseph or his father with the marriage agreement. Just as with Joseph, Mary agreed to sexual abstinence and purity as part of the contract. A person’s view of sex is an expression of their view of God(1 Pet. 4:3-5). As a believing woman, her desire was to honor God and her future husband by preparing herself for marriage. This would involve learning domestic skills to run a home and preparation for becoming a wife and mother. Mary was an ordinary woman in an ordinary town with ordinary looks expecting an ordinary future. God can take the plain and make it beautiful and use the ordinary to do the extraordinary!