The Cleft of the Rock

Welcome to the cleft of the Rock

"In Your presence....
That's where I am strong!
In Your presence.....
Oh Lord my God!
In Your presence...
That's where I belong!
Seeking Your Face...
Touching Your Grace...
In your Presence Oh God!"

The Virgin Mary

by Rebecca Shimp

Disclaimer: This is an elaboration of a true story. All elaborations are made up and not scientifically proven.

The Virgin Mary is perhaps the most famous women in history. All the statues and portraits of her display her as a serene, beautiful woman. She's as untouchable as a saintly heroine in a romance novel. Throughout the history of the Bible, God tends to choose unlikely people to do great things. So what if Mary wasn't such a saint to begin with? This elaborated version of the Christmas Story has Elizabeth, Mary's cousin, for a narrator.

My name is Elizabeth, and this story is about my cousin, Mary. Now Mary is much younger then I am, but since her mother died we've become very close. Her father remarried recently, a good kind women named Alidia. This story is about something that happened to my cousin Mary, but before I begin you have to understand what Mary is like.

When I think of Mary, I think of her sandels. She's always threading beads on them, or winding pretty threads around them to make them "fancy". Mary sets a great store on pretty things, she's a rather plain looking girl herself, not like her mother.

When Mary's father told her that he'd found a husband for her, Mary talked back to him quite rudely and told him she would not marry whomever he had picked out.

"What do you mean?" Her father blustered, " You're almost 16, for heavens sake. Don't you want to marry?"

"Of course I do, but I want to marry Hiram's son Josiah."

"Josiah is only a boy! Joseph is a man, and prosperious."

"Joseph? The carpenter?"

"Yes." He father grinned. "Changed your mind, have you? Remember how good-looking you thought he was when he was working for me last summer?"

"Good-looking, yes." Mary squared her shoulders. "But stubborn and proud, no doubt. I will not have him."

"You will have him!"

"Will not." She stomped her foot.

"Don't talk back to me!"

"Oh yeah?"

The argument only got worse from then on, and Mary came to stay with me for a while. As much as I hate to say it, I envied Mary. She was young and would have children, I was old...and had none.

"Mary," I said, "You've got to learn to take life as it is. You can't go around changing all the rules."

"Lizzy, if I marry, I'll never get a chance to do anything exciting. I want to travel, I want adventure and excitment. I want to do something big, something really big."

"Be careful what you wish for." I reminded her, stroking her hair. "God would have you honor your father, you know."

"Do you think so?"

"Of course. You know the commandments, Mary. Honor your father, honor Alidia. God will bless you for it."

I didn't know then that my words would be phophetic. Mary went home and apologized to her father, and for a while, everything was fine. Then it happened. My husband, Zacharias, is a priest. One day while he was performing the priest's office, something strange happened to him, and when he came out among the people, he couldn't speak. People said that he had seen a vision, but I didn't know what to think.

That is, I didn't know what to think until I discovered I was going to have a baby. At my age, a baby was nearly impossible! Still the Lord heard my cry and took away my shame. I hid my condition from everyone except Zacharias for 6 months!

While I was rejoicing in secret, Mary was trying hard to accept the fact that she was going to be married. Joseph was a nice man, and a good choice, but Mary still had a sinking feeling that marriege would be the end of any chances of adventure.

Then, as Mary told me later with wide eyes, an ANGEL of the Lord appeared before her and said "Hail, You are highly favored, and the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women."

Mary was scared to death. What had she done cause an angel to visit her? Would the angel strike her down for her sins? The Lord knew she deserved it. "Are you sure you have the right Mary?" she blurted out.

But the angel said to her "Fear not, Mary, for you have found favor with God, and behold you shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Jesus. And he shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give him the thone of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."

(Mary could tell he was real by how many times he said "shall".)

"How can this be?" She asked, puzzled. "How can I have a baby when I'm a virgin?"

And the angel said "The Holy Ghost shall come upon you, and the power of the most high will overshadow you. This is a holy thing which shall be born of you will be called the Son of God. And behold, your cousin Elizabeth, she has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God, nothing is impossible."

Then Mary squared her shoulders and said, "Behold yourself, I am the handmaiden of the Lord, let it be according to your word."

When he left, Mary said she felt like she could dance forever and not grow tired. She came as soon as she could to my house to tell me the news. As soon as I heard her voice, the baby stirred inside of me and I was filled with joy. We had a wonderful long visit, and then she went home. That's when things started getting tricky.

Mary had been walking around in a happy haze for weeks before Alidia noticed that she was with child. Streight away she went to Mary's father, who was understandably angry. "What have you done?" He bellowed at my poor unsuspecting cousin. "How could you have gotten yourself with child when you're engaged to Joseph?"

"Actually," said Mary, "This is a holy thing. An angel told me so."

I'll skip the long argument that followed, but the point is that they didn't believe her. Mary kept insisting and they kept resisting her story. Finally there was a break in their quarrels when I went into labor and brought forth my son. There was a big party at my house, and Zacharias managed to communicate to me that he wanted to name the boy John. That was fine with me, especially after he miraculasly started talking again. But getting back to Mary...

Joseph didn't believe Mary either at first, she pled with him until she broke down in tears. "I knew this was going to be hard." she told me, "But I didn't know that everyone wouldn't believe me."

Well, God was still looking out for Mary. An angel visited Joseph (its getting to be quite a trend around here, seeing angels.) and told him what Mary had been trying to tell him all along. Finally Joseph went to Mary's parents and they believed him and cried and hugged Mary.

Next week they're heading to Bethlehem to pay their taxes. I suppose Mary just might have an adventure after all, not as a young girl, but as the mother of the... Messiah.

He waits for you just like He waits for me.

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