“The angel went to her and said, ‘Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you’” (Luke 1:28). Read Luke 1:26-38. Mary’s deep, abiding relationship with God is truly a model for all of us, young or old, to emulate. By all accounts Mary didn’t have an easy life. She was a young girl in a society where only men seemed to matter. She was poor and lived in Nazareth, a village that had a reputation for being unremarkable, so she was likewise unremarkable from a worldly perspective. Add to this the fact that when she became supernaturally pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary was not yet married—only betrothed—so she knew her pregnancy would create a terrible scandal that could leave her abandoned, ostracized, or worse—stoned to death. Yet, because she had a self-image grounded in the God’s Word, she was able to hold her head high—not faking it but trusting in the Lord for […]