How do you think you would feel if you were nearly nine months pregnant and you came into a strange town to find out there was no room for you to rent. Someone offers you to sleep with the animals in a barn. You are tired from the trip and decide to take up his offer. So, there you are in the barn. Your husband fixes up an empty manger with extra hay and you lay down on it, listening to the animals who are getting ready for their evening rest too. Soon you are sound asleep. Sometime during the night you find you are in the beginning of labor.

You are frightened. This is your first child, but have the baby here in this barn? My husband must find a better place to have this baby! But no, this baby is coming fast.You’ll have to have the baby here with the cows mooing, the horses winnowing, the chickens clucking. It seems impossible you thought.

But it isn’t impossible. It happened just like that! Only it must have been worse. Joseph received the orders to leave Nazareth and go to Bethlehem with his wife who was nearly nine months pregnant to register. It was over 80 miles to Bethlehem and the only method they had was to walk! Joseph was able to get a mule, but the problem was that the mule had to carry everything they needed for the journey, blankets to sleep on, food and clothes. Mary could only ride part of the time so she would have to walk too.

It would take about four days if they walked 20 miles a day and that was doubtful considering her condition. I’m sure they were late getting to Bethlehem and that’s why the rooms were all taken. Many people also got the message to go to Bethlehem.

Can you imagine how Mary felt when she found out she would have to sleep in a barn? After all, she knew she was carrying God’s son and a barn wasn’t the place for Him to be born! But God knew he wanted the poor to be welcome to the little Christ child. Further evidence of this was the lowly Shepherds who were called by the angels to be the first to visit God’s Son.

He didn’t forget the rich either. The wisemen were also called to follow the star which led them to Bethlehem and the little one.

Putting yourself in Mary’s place makes the birth of Jesus much more real, doesn’t it? May you have a very blessed Christmas and a great new year!

It’s a good thing to think about the Baby Jesus during this Advent season. It prepares us for a real Christmas celebration. For these four weeks in December I will give you something to think about. These stories, of course, are not true. They are just as I imagined, stories that were not told in the Bible. The Bible tells us that Jesus was born in the little town of Bethlehem and that is important to  all of us.

Mary was just fourteen years old that time when the angel came to her. She was lying in her bed when the angel arrived. The angel looked like anyone living in her little town, Nazareth but she was surprised to see a man standing by her bed. The man said, “Fear not, I have come to tell you that the Holy Spirit will come to you and you will be pregnant.”

“But how can this be? I have never been married and the man I am engaged to would never have sex with me until we are married.”

“But this baby will be the Son of God,” the angel said.

“I will accept anything God wants,” she answered quietly.

She told Joseph what the angel had said, but Joseph was worried about how the town would react to Mary being pregnant and he prepared to leave her. One day, as he was walking in the woods nearby thinking about the problem, a man suddenly appeared. Joseph was frightened because there were many robbers around. But he knew it was an angel when the man said, ” Fear not! You are so worried about Mary. Don’t be. Mary’s Child will be just as she told you. She is carrying the Son of God. You should marry her soon.”

“I will do as you say,” Joseph said, and he went to find Mary to tell her an angel had come to him telling him to marry her soon. She was overjoyed at this news.

The couple was married a few weeks later, but Mary was beginning to show. The baby inside her was starting to grow and the town people were angry. They didn’t believe a girl should be pregnant before marriage. In fact, there was a law that girls would be stoned to death if that happened. Now that Joseph and Mary were married, they didn’t know what to do. So they left them alone and I mean alone! Most to them didn’t even talk to them, and when they passed by them they tossed harsh words to them. It was a harsh and troubled time for both Mary and Joseph.

That is how I saw the months Mary was waiting for her baby and Joseph was taking care of her. It must have been a hard time! Next week Ill be telling you about the message from the governor and them having to go to Bethlehem.