Mary said, ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word’ (Mark 1:38).
I’d guess most of us have pondered Mary’s response to the Angel Gabriel’s message that she was chosen to be the Mother of the Messiah. Of course we have! What else can compare with such an example of humility and welcome submission to God’s Will? But have we considered the full meaning of the first word alone? I never did, I simply passed over it thinking “This is how people talk in the Bible.” That is, until I listened to a short talk by Isaac Wicker, co-founder of KNOWN. Isaac explained that Our Blessed Mother was saying “Look at me, here I am.” He encouraged his listeners to follow her example in speaking to God. Showing yourself to him, asking him to see you, to behold you. Not trying to hide anything from him.
“Look at me, Lord. Look at the mess that I am. You know me. You can see everything about me: the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful. You know my struggles. You know my strengths. You know how confused and tangled I get. You know what I need.”
This is a powerful and beautiful prayer that I’ve been embracing: approaching the Lord and showing myself to him. Letting him look at me. It’s a vulnerable communion with God that takes courage to engage in, but through it, I’ve allowed him to touch my heart intimately and effectively.
Many times throughout my years of being a mom, I have worried that I don’t pray for my kids enough. I will hear other mothers describe their prayers for their children, and I always feel that I’m falling short in that area. Whenever I try to pray for my kids, words fail me, I feel helpless, as if I’m looking at God with my babies in my arms, and I can’t say anything except, “These are my babies.” But a realization startled me like the loud popping flash on an old fashioned camera – my helpless prayer is the same as Mary’s “Behold.”
Words fall short. I can’t begin to express all my desires for my kids, and at the same time, I can’t begin to imagine the plans God has for each of them – God who loves them even more than I do. He knows their strengths and weaknesses; he knows what challenges and sorrows they will have to face. He knows how much I desperately want him to take care of them and keep them safe. Words don’t need to be spoken. He sees a mother holding her babies in her arms, showing them to him. He sees. He beholds.
Postscript: Marnie Parmenter recently wrote a beautiful piece on this blog all about “Behold.” (You can find it here.) I didn’t see it until after I wrote this. The Lord works in mysterious ways! As Marnie said, it truly is the year of “Behold!”