Soft, colored Christmas lights glowing through my sheer, white-curtained bedroom window on Christmas eve – the only night of the season that mom and dad left them on all night. These faithfully marked the coming of my favorite day of the year as a child.
When I think about young Mary in the scripture above, I’m so struck by her great faith in the promise the angel of God spoke to her. She hadn’t yet married or born a child, yet she received this promise and she believed it. Sometimes our hope in a promise of God comes from His past faithfulness in that particular area of our life, just as my past Christmas experiences with the twinkling lights pointed me with certainty to the coming day of joy. But sometimes, holding onto hope can be difficult when facing a trial or season that we’ve not walked through before, or while waiting for the fulfillment of a promise that seems to tarry forever…these require more faith muscle. That’s when knowing God’s scriptural promises are so beneficial. As we read them, write them out, memorize them and continually claim them, our faith and hope are boosted, and we are again encouraged as we wait.