Mary’s Ordeal

 

 

Betrothed to one person

And pregnant for another,

Can’t you see the dire implication

And why I was bothered?

 

Joseph was a good man

And didn’t deserve this

And I was virtually out of my mind

When the period I missed.

 

I had been faithful

And a virgin I still was

But just imagine all the chatter-

The incessant buzz.

 

Who would believe me?

Joseph certainly did not

And being the kind of gentleman

He couldn’t let it drop.

 

Even after I told him

What the angel had said,

He still thought of breaking it off

Privately instead.

 

He did not make a fuss

And appeared quite calm

But I knew he felt disappointed;

He was a man.

 

But God told him

To still take me as his wife,

I am sure some of you would say,

Not on your life.

 

Well Joseph did

As history has shown

And in my pregnancy, you’d recall

I had to leave home.

 

 

 

We went to Bethlehem

To be registered

And it was there in that little town

That I delivered.

 

 

 

You view the nativity

And you do so with delight

But you do not have the first clue

Concerning my plight.

 

Innkeeper after innkeeper

Just turned us away

And not one of them would give to us

Even the time of day.

 

 

When at our wit’s end,

One had compassion

And my precious baby was born

In the unlikeliest fashion.

 

Dried hay for a bed

And for a crib, a manger,

Yes, in an animal’s feeding trough

Lay our Saviour.

 

The Saviour of the world

And my Saviour as well

As in the reflective Magnificat

I also did tell.

 

This was not a fanfare

But more so an ordeal,

Even after the father of my son

Was revealed.

 

 

 

I kept it all to myself

And inwardly pondered

While nursing my tiny baby boy

And my Saviour.

 

The ordeal that this was

Could not compare

With the fact that God in the flesh

Was finally here.

 

I was the chosen one

Though without merit

To be the mother of the Messiah,

Holy Spirit’s deposit.

 

Stewart Russell © December 21, 2025