When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary with the news of pending motherhood, she was caught off guard.
"You will bear a son and call Him Jesus."
It was inconceivable, because she hadn't known a man. She could, therefore, not conceive. The events as she understood them didn't lead to pregnancy.
Yet the angel was confident.
"For with God nothing shall be impossible."
Mary acquiesced with words of acceptance.
"Behold the maidservant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word."
There have been points in my life and probably in yours when the impossibilities loomed large. Relationships that derailed, jobs that self destructed, medical events that towered like concrete walls defying access to whatever lay on the other side.
What is on the other side?
With some of those barriers, I know the answer. There are people I love that I am close to again. For awhile we forgot, or at least I did. Maybe not even forgot so much as mislaid the affection under a rock of resentment. There are others who are home again, after a jarring decision to whisk them to a locked facility. Those kinds of doors are the epitome of impassable, which is another version of impossible.
The backdrop of disbelief in Mary's voice does nothing to sully her trust. Rather it is like the inky black of the predawn. Not defiance of the sun rising, just the reality of not being able to see yet.
There are areas of my life that are still dark. Not because the light has betrayed me, or left me under a rock, but because illumination has not yet arrived.
