Before

Before

Before Bethlehem, there was the road. There was the dust and there were the jolting steps over rocks and ruts. There were deep ligaments pulling and joints aching and feet swelling and a husband drooping weary as he watched his bride wince and shift. I wonder what thoughts rolled in Mary’s mind as Life rolled in her womb. Maybe the voice of the angel telling her not to be afraid. Maybe the whispers and stares, people she’d known all her life who now refused to look her in the eye, believing shame was hers to own. Maybe she was nervous about what lay ahead. She’d never had a baby before. And this wasn’t just any baby. Or maybe a tangled combination of all of this ran circles in her head, the size of her feelings pushing at the edges of her heart as surely as the...

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