“This hit me.. Another perspective of being ‘highly favored.’

She was ‘highly favored’ but was almost put away by the man she loved the most.

‘Highly favored’ but she was rejected by every person in Bethlehem.

‘Highly favored’ but she laid on the dirt floor of a barn and gave birth to a baby she carried nine months.

‘Highly favored’ but in the middle of the night had to leave all she knew and move to a strange town because God said so.

Favor never looks like favor at first. Favor sometimes takes you through frustration, failure, and fear. You want to be favored of God? It may be in darkest night or deepest valley. But there in that place where no one sees you and you feel like no one understands whisper to yourself, ‘This is only the beginning not the end. This will turn out for my good and His glory. This is because… I’m Favored.’”

Repost Brent Carr

#thelindsaychronicles #highlyfavored

You’ve probably heard of the expression “favor ain’t fait.” I think in this case, it’s true. Mary’s life would have been way less complicated if she hadn’t been chosen and favored by God. But no one would have remembered her name. No one would have her example of faith to follow.

Because of her embracing God’s calling, she got to witness the in-breaking of God into the world as a baby. She got to hold Emmanuel, God with us, in her arms.

She also lived to see that same son crucified. She also witnessed all of His agony and weep while He was tortured to death. She saw the place where they laid Him in a tomb and saw the stone rolled in front to seal Him in.

But best of all, she was eyewitness to Jesus rising from the dead and from that tomb. She saw with her own eyes the hope of the world and how death and hell had been defeated and how the grave would no longer have the last word. She saw the true fulfillment of salvation that was to be for all people, given to those who receive it in faith.

She was highly favored. That doesn’t mean she was guaranteed an easy or a comfortable path, but she knew the glory that awaited at the end of the road. She knew God was with her on that journey and that at the end was the redemption she had hoped and prayed for all her life.