I’m sure you’ve received some of the same emails I have the last few weeks. At least the parts that are being copied and pasted a million times over. They start like this.

We are living in uncertain times …

The word uncertain has become synonymous with eerie and surreal. What with the empty grocery store aisles, the deserted streets, regular people wearing surgical-looking masks and gloves, how can we not feel this way? People are losing their jobs right and left, and those who are otherwise strong and healthy are now dependent on ventilators to deliver air to their starving lungs. 

This strange time reminds me of one of those crazy scary movies I might watch only because I know it couldn’t possibly ever happen. 

Yet, here we are. 

Living in uncertain times.

Somewhere in the middle of this place even if we won’t admit it, we might be asking the question, where are you God? Why is this happening? Was this in your plan?

Easter is around the corner and I’m wondering if Mary felt the same way.

Did she question God  as she watched her first born, Jesus, spit upon, ridiculed, tortured, beaten to a pulp, only to hang on a cross and die for something he didn’t do? She probably never imagined something this horrific could possibly happen. 

But it did.

She was certainly living in uncertain times. 

It had to feel surreal for her. Did she question God as to the why? Perhaps she did but Scripture leads me to believe, in all the uncertainty she pulled from what she knew for certain.

We hear in the news that some people are filling their hearts with hope by putting up twinkle lights because it reminds them of Christmas. As Mary watched her son carry his own cross, the one he would soon hang from, maybe she was hanging Christmas lights too. And perhaps we should do the same.

I know you’re probably thinking, WHAT? But stay with me.

I believe every word in the Bible is meant for teaching, encouraging, correcting and rebuking as is stated in 2 Timothy 3:16. 

We should not pass over a single word or sentence. 

So let’s go back to the first Christmas in Bethlehem where it says in Luke 2:19, “…Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.”  

This verse seems so far removed from whats’s going on today but it isn’t really. We can glean something from these few words as to how we can fill our unknown with the well known. 

What was Mary’s heart pondering and treasuring up that we can treasure and dwell on also? 

Maybe she stored up the memories of the angel appearing to her and sharing God’s plan that she, a virgin, was to become pregnant by the Holy Spirit and give birth to the long awaited Messiah. (Luke 1:28-35) 

She probably spent time playing over and over in her head how her cousin Elizabeth (who didn’t know Mary was pregnant), while filled with the Spirit, prophesied about the baby in her womb. (Luke 1:41-45) 

And then there was the joy and all the happenings surrounding the birth of Jesus, the angels singing, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests” (Luke 2:14). 

In her uncertain times she pulled from what she knew for certain—her undeniable encounters with the Lord God Almighty. She allowed His sovereignty to fill the questions in her heart. 

As we prepare for Easter, quarantined in our homes, may we recall our own God encounters and replace our questions by pondering on God’s sovereignty and faithfulness to us.

You see, we actually have an advantage over Mary. We know something huge that Mary didn’t know then.

Sunday is coming and the tomb is empty! 

And it still is, even during these uncertain times. 

Looking forward, pressing on and trusting God in every bump and twist in my road.