An Insightful Moment in the Fields

I really liked the imagery used in this lesson, how it was appropriate for the shepherds to be told first because, after all, it was the Lamb who was just brought into the world…. But I’ll be honest, this wasn’t one of my favorite lessons so far, I just didn’t get as much out of it, which is ok. I don’t expect to be blown away by every lesson… there will be some lessons that reach each one of us that the others just wont relate to as well, that’s what makes this “club” work so well…. Even when something doesn’t affect us, we can see how God is still using it to touch someone else…

As always, I look at everything with a mother’s heart, and what hit me most really wasn’t brought out in the lesson, but it’s something that I’ve never even thought about before. Here we have Mary, Joseph and Jesus in a barn. All alone, unsanitary and in the company of livestock and all that entails. And in come some nasty, dirty men raving about angels. This would have scared me to death. I mean, your child is something you protect with all your being. You’re in unfamiliar settings and you have got to be tired from the birth and the new baby. What do you do? How did they know that these shepherds weren’t going to steal the baby or anything else? How did they know that these men weren’t going to hurt them? How do they know that these men were sent from God? They surely didn’t look the part of the safe neighbor next door coming to borrow a cup of sugar. They had to have been dirty and smelly and pretty rough-looking. And yet, “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart." It blows my mind….