Monday, December 28, 2009

Mounting a donkey after giving birth....can you imagine?

Gospel Reading today: Mathew 2:13-18
"Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt.." Mathew 2:14

We all remember the delivery of our first born. I don't know about you, but the pain I experienced after the anesthesia wore off was the worst. All I can think about when I read this is poor Mary had to mount a donkey and flee to Egypt after giving birth to her first born son. I hope and pray God gave her some kind of divine anesthesia, but more than likely He didn't. I have so many questions....did she stop and nurse every 2-3 hours? Did she want to scream every time baby Jesus latched on because it hurt so badly? How did she have enough milk with the stress, exhaustion and lack of nutrition? How in the world did she ride a donkey with the blood and the pain she must have experienced? I fainted after the delivery of my first born because I hadn't eaten anything for 12 hours during labor and I lost so much blood. I can almost guarantee you Mary did not have a hot meal and a huge glass of water after giving birth. Remember how thirsty you were?

These were all the things rushing through my head as I read the gospel today. As I have the post holiday blues and piles of laundry as tall as the ceiling, all I have to do is think of Mary and Joseph fleeing to Egypt and everything in my life at this moment looks rosy. I am a little disappointed in myself that I have let the post-holiday blues set in and that I think we need a bigger home now because all of the "stuff" we accumulated for Christmas. I am ashamed. I am going to focus on the Holy Family today and rejoice because our Savior was born! Like my favorite Christmas song says "...and we will live forever more because of Christmas Day." That is something to rejoice about today and dance around my home with happiness and joy.

Merry Christmas to all of you sweet Mamas! We've got it pretty easy, don't we?

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