“Mary! I love your ring!” cried Kelsey, Mary’s classmate and study buddy. They were stuck in English class, with Miss Eddy droning on and on about MLA citation. Gah she couldn’t wait to go home already and take a nap!
“Thanks!” Mary happily replied, although she didn’t know what was so pretty about her plain silver True Love Waits ring.
“What does it say? Oh…true love waits,” Kelsey said with a look of disgust in her eyes. It wasn’t cool to be a virgin in Leon County High School, nor to advertise it with a purity ring.
Most things about Mary wouldn’t even be considered cool at LCHS. She was a Jew, for one, and if she didn’t stand out enough with her big nose, the fact that she couldn’t eat pork, and that she always wore a Star of David to remind her of the Tanah, she always was facing prejudices. Mary was one of the handful of Jews that believed that Yahweh even existed, and one of the few remaining ones that still had hope that the Messiah would come one day to save the world from their sins. She was a 17-year old woman of virtue and dignity, which earned her the “goody two-shoes” title of the school. But somehow people still liked Mary. She was always happy and kind to others. With her outgoing and friendly personality, she made everyone feel at home instantly. The women in the synagogue praised her for her obedience to Yahweh and the young girls admired her. Mary was loved by all.
Suddenly the bell rang. Freedom!!! It was time to go home at last.
Liz cooked steaks at home in the kitchen, wiping back tears as she looked at the empty bedrooms in her home. When she and her husband Zech had gotten married thirty years ago, he had looked her in the eyes and promised to bring her as many kids as she wanted. As a stay at home wife, that was all Liz wanted. Kids. So when it came time to buy a house, they bought one with five bedrooms. But now it looked like no blessings from heaven would inhabit them. Heck, she was fifty. It would never happen, not ever.
“You have ovarian cancer.” Four words had ruined everything twenty years ago, yet four words also explained the deaths of the three miscarried infants. The first time Liz had lost a pair of boy and girl twins, the second time it was a little boy. The doctors ran every test they could think of, and then finally the brought the terrible news. At least they had caught the cancer early enough so that it was treatable. But the bad news was that her ovaries were so damaged that it was impossible for her to ever have kids. Liz hated herself for having such a messed up body, she hated life and its cruelty, but most of all she hated Yahweh, the Creator of life, for putting such pain and misery in her life. She was a Jew, for crying out loud, and if she was supposed to be part of His chosen people, she certainly didn’t feel any different. Her family didn’t think so; they thought that God was punishing her for something because she didn’t have kids and as a result they had ignored her completely. She took out her anger on the piece of steak in front of her. Liz started stabbing it, and to her horror, started laughing aloud bitterly about getting to torture something else instead of herself. Ha!
But then Zech walked in from work. She expected to hear some wise crack about her strange laughter, but instead she heard silence.
“What’s up with you?” Liz asked. His eyes were squinty and red, as if he’d seen a great light. She waited for him to explain. But instead of him talking, she heard a strange gargling noise from his throat. “What on earth is the matter with you?” Zech shook his head, ran and got paper and a pen, and scribbled a note to Liz. It said:
“An angel came to me today. He says you are pregnant. I laughed at him and told him he was crazy, so he made me mute for a reaaally long time. Please believe me.”
Liz started crying again. She never imagined it’d come down to this. Her husband was on drugs. Maybe her family really did have reason to hate her.
Mary sighed as she collapsed on the couch and tried to find a channel that wasn’t talking about Will and Kate’s stupid royal wedding. They got married. Who cares? Plus, the freedom of marrying whoever you wanted was something she’d never get to experience.
That was something she hated when she was younger about coming from a traditional Jewish family-her parents had picked out her husband for her before she was born, one who was from the tribe of Benjamin and who descended from King David-yipee. While her friends went on dates and giggled about boys and did other typical 17-year old girl things, she was stuck with Joe whether she liked it or not. There was no dating, no choice of boyfriend, just the engagement period at 18 where she’d wait for a year before marriage to prove that Joe hadn’t gotten her pregnant and the marriage period at age 19.
As she got older, her parents wanted her to get to know Joe more. Since she had been 12 they had been hanging out every Saturday night and Sunday once the Sabbath had ended. Joe’s family moved to Tallahassee from a small town about two hours away called Macclenny so that this could happen. He had been her date to the junior prom(her parents didn’t want her to miss out on traditional American things too much) and might even be her date for senior prom. Joe was a pretty nice guy. He was gentle and incredibly wise. He was cute, with his curly brown hair and nice build. He wasn’t your stereotypical Jew though: he loved to hunt and build/fix things. He even had a Southern accent, coming from a little country town like Macclenny. (His Israeli immigrant parents didn’t have one though.) The only problem was that Joe was flat out broke. His family was pretty poor and they lived in a one bedroom trailer. Mary had no clue how she’d provide for her future family with the lack of financial support she’d have.
But she knew that Yahweh had a plan. God always did. And Yahweh also wanted her to be more productive with herself before the sun set and it was time to observe the Sabbath. Mary decided to go ahead and do her laundry. Grabbing her nasty clothes from her hamper, she quickly sorted them out and took them out to the creepy laundry room.
A light brighter than anything she had ever seen appeared.
“Rejoice, favored woman! Immanuel!” a majestic voice flowing from the light said.
Mary screamed.
A light brighter than anything he had ever seen had appeared before Zech that day. He blinked, trying to get the image away from his eyes, but it was impossible. He tried to force words to come from his mouth, but it couldn’t be done. He had been mute for six months now.
This was proof. He didn’t believe the messenger from God, and as punishment he couldn’t speak until the baby was to be born. The angel was right. Liz would have a kid, and that kid who he was supposed to name John would start to get people ready for the Messiah. John would be a father. The Messiah would come. Yahweh was not dead, nor did He sleep.
Liz came running in.
“I believe you,” she said, sobbing tears of joy. “I believe you. I’ve felt Zech Jr. kicking for the past two months now. I thought I was just sick. I never thought I was really pregnant. I know. I’m crazy. I’ve ignored this huge belly for the past few months now..I just said that I had gained weight from all of your delicious cooking,” Liz whispered. “But now I’m ready. I’m ready to believe. May all know that our God is the one, true God, that Yahweh is surely alive. Immanuel.”
For God was truly with them.
Mary stood, shaking. Thank goodness her parents weren’t home yet. She had a LOT to think about.
An ANGEL who said his name was Gabriel had come, for Pete’s sake!!! No one was going to believe her! Yahweh hadn’t spoken to anyone for 3,000 years! Why would He randomly talk to some 17-year old American Jew living in Tallahassee?
He said she was pregnant even though she’d never spread her legs and that God’s spirit would enter her! Um she’d sure have fun explaining THAT to her parents, her classmates, and most of all, to Joe. Why should they really believe her? How would they know she hadn’t just gotten high and saw things, and then had sex with some other guy? “You’ll become wild one day, dear virgin Mary,” the football players had always sneered at her. How were they to know that she was telling the truth?
Mary was supposed to have a little baby that she’d have to name Jesus? Jesus was a stupid name…what type of name was that, anyway?! And that baby would save the world? How would a stupid, rotten, smelly baby born from an unwed teenager save the world? Unwed, pregnant teenager. Wow. That was her.
Mary screamed. She was pregnant, not married, and her fiancé wasn’t even the father of the baby. Not to mention she wasn’t even 18 yet. She wanted to die.
“REALLLY, GOD?!?!?” God was crazy. Just crazy! Why would He make her go through all of this crap? Why her? What did she do to deserve this? She just tried to obey her parents and be nice. Why her?! And how the HECK was she supposed to tell Joe?
But there was something else that dear Gabe had told her. Her cousin, Elizabeth, or “Liz,” was pregnant. That was ridiculous. Liz had never been able to have kids, and because Mary’s parents thought that her lack of children was a punishment of God, they had lost most contact with her. But she still had Liz’s number. With shaking hands, she dialed it.
“Liz. Liz. It’s your cousin, Mary. I know we haven’t talked in forever….but I really need someone to talk to and I think that..you might could help me. You still live in Pebble Hill Apartments? Okay. I’m coming.”
Mary hopped on her bike and pedaled as fast as she could to her cousin Liz. If the angel was right and Liz really was prego, then she’d believe this whole thing about her being the virgin mother of a savior to the world. But only then.
And even that seemed unlikely.
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