Pearl Girls 12 Days of Christmas

For the next few days, I’ll be putting up posts that are part of the wonderful 12 Days of Christmas, brief devotional-type messages from various authors included in the Pearl Girl compilation recently published by Moody. Read about the upcoming contest! And for more information about Pearl Girls, click on the link below.

12 Pearls of Christmas: Wondrous Mystery

Magnificat
by Anna Joujan

Holy. Holy. Holy is the Lord. The familiar catch of breath. The sting in the eyes. And the tears begin to flow with the falling rain. Or do the tears fall with the flowing rain. What is it in these words that I whisper that wrenches at my heart so? Why does Mary’s prayer touch the core of my being, so many centuries after it was spoken?

I think it must be because I know that she was just a girl, just a human being, with a woman’s heart like my own. And so, when I hear her wondering words, I can feel with her the emotion she must have felt. To bear the son of God-what wondrous mystery, what glorious honour! And she was, like me, just a young woman-much younger, in fact, than I am now. And so, no matter how often I hear the story and read her words, it still has the power to bring abrupt and unsought tears.

What a gracious God, to work wonders with such frail and faulty creatures as us!

Anna G. Joujan was born in South Dakota , as a Canadian citizen, and was raised in Zambia , the child of missionary teachers. Since her family’s move to the U.S. , Anna spent her childhood and early adulthood traveling throughout the world thanks to various educational and work opportunities . . . France , China , Peru , and Jamaica being some of the stops in her journeys. Her undergraduate degree in French Literature led to a Masters in Information Sciences, and to work as a college and high school librarian, and a cross country coach. She has also returned to Zambia multiple times to teach for individual families and for local schools. All the while continuing pursuing her passions of writing, artwork, photography . . . and running to a fault. She blogs at Full of Grace.