Dear Daughters,

Have you ever pondered how it must have felt to be Mary when the angel came to her announcing that she was chosen to be the mother of the Jewish Messiah?  Her response to the angel Gabriel was quite amazing. 

In the book Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools, Tyler Staton includes an enlightening chapter about Mary’s prayer when the angel visited her.

Most prayers we pray are able to fit into one of three categories.

1 – Active prayer: a prayer trying to get God to adopt our will.  There is a presumption that if we can crack the code or say the right words in the right order with the right amount of emotion – then He will hopefully become our cosmic genie.

2 – Passive prayer: trying to let God be, and let ourselves simply be.  We aren’t asking for anything and may be emptying ourselves of any desire to ask. 

But neither of these prayers are what God desires.  We can see the most remarkable prayer – what Eugene Peterson calls the Middle Voice – in Mary’s response to the angel Gabriel centuries ago.

Mary was a young teenage girl engaged to be married, probably counting down the weeks until the wedding.  She may have had a fairy-tale expectation for her upcoming marriage, as many young women do. She may have imagined how wonderful it will be to build a home with her future husband, Joseph.

 And then she is visited by Gabriel, announcing that she, a virgin, is carrying a child.  The Spirit of God has caused her to conceive and God Himself is the father.

For her whole life Mary had heard about the coming Messiah through the many prophets, wondering along with everyone else when He would arrive.  So, I’m sure she was amazed that God had finally chosen this time – her time – to send His child, and the fact that she would be the mother of the Messiah, playing an important part in the supporting cast of this amazing, centuries-long prophesied story. 

On the other hand, there are the devastating practicalities to go along with it.  Mary would have to tell Joseph she was pregnant with another’s child, and the father’s name is the Alpha and the Omega.  She knew she would have to endure the social stigma going along with her being pregnant before she was married.  How many people of her village would believe she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit? Would her family disown her?  Would Joseph believe these wild-sounding words?

With all these thoughts most likely racing through her mind she responds simply,

I am the Lord’s servant.

Let it be with me just as you say.

Mary’s prayer was one of total surrender and participation.  This prayer is the Middle Voice, in which God delights greatly.  It’s not pressing God for what she wants, and it’s not being passive – floating along life with no specific desires at all. 

When we pray in the Middle Voice, we are willing to participate in God’s plan.  It is the declaration that He is God and we are not, an acknowledgement of our place in the created order.  He is the author of our story, and we each have an important supporting role to play in this story.  Our fulfillment is walking in His plan, going where He says to go and doing what He says to do.  There is no greater joy than this.

The Middle Voice reminds me of the mighty Snake River in the West.  In my younger days I have tried to swim against the current, but it only brought me frustration and weariness.  I was not strong enough and it seemed like an exercise in futility.  When we continually try to create our own story and deny His, we can never truly rest because always anxiety and exhaustion are always hovering.

Yet when I swim in the direction of the current which is always moving, I am not anxious, but instead receive resilience.  I am moving along with God’s power and have become a part of His story so I don’t need to manufacture one of my own.  Walking in step with the Spirit brings freedom and joy like nothing else.  Yes, there will be challenges when we accept God’s call on our life, but we’ll never walk alone.  I agree with Tyler as he writes:

I want that too.  I want what I see in Mary.  I want to cooperate with God’s redemptive work in this broken world.  I want to swim with the current, speeding along effortlessly, paddling my arms and kicking my legs, but propelled on by a stronger current too.  I want to cooperate with God’s work in me, inviting His formation of my desires, thoughts, emotions and actions, all of them hopelessly disordered by the fallen image of which I am a part.  I want the Spirit of God to rework me from within, like an expert mechanic to a classic car, getting me running according to design. 

Accepting God’s will for our lives, also known as surrendering, means giving up control of our lives, but when we give control to our Creator, who knows us best and loves us more than anyone on earth, it’s got to be a good choice.

Love, Mom