I am the Lord’s servant, Mary answered. May it be to me as you have said.

Luke 1: 3

As we celebrate Mother’s Day, I can’t help but reflect on the mother of Jesus and wonder how different our world would be today if every woman accepted the calling to be a mother in the same way Mary did.

When the angel appeared to Mary and announced the power of the Holy Spirit would overshadow her and she would conceive a child, Mary willingly accepted the high calling to be a mother. Mary certainly hadn’t planned the pregnancy and the timing surely must have seemed way off. Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph. In that culture and time, a woman who became pregnant before marriage could have been stoned to death.

Mary wasn’t worried about having enough money to start a family. She wasn’t concerned with how a baby might affect her career. She didn’t complain that she wasn’t ready to be a mother. She didn’t argue that perhaps she was too young or too old to have a child. She simply accepted the blessing of motherhood as a servant of the Lord.

We could argue that it was easier for Mary to accept her pregnancy because she had divine intervention. After all, we likely didn’t have an angel appear to us to announce our pregnancies and we certainly weren’t carrying the savior of the world. However, all life is created by God.

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139: 13-16

If you’re a mother, I encourage to you embrace it, cherish it, and enjoy it. No career or other endeavor is as important as nurturing children and spending time with them.

We should all be inspired by Mary’s response to learning she was about to become a mother. We should accept it as a gift from God and rejoice that we were chosen to be entrusted with the high calling of motherhood. We are blessed!