NORTHWEST POETRY PRESENTS:

Let us "take a pause" and look twice at Maryam. Maybe God will open our eyes.

Without mothers, what would there be?

Not even a world to see?

Thank God for mothers,

they are God's gift.

So let's all join to give them a lift!

I think how Maryam stood suffering by Christ's side,

she valiantly endured until her precious son died.

The questions thick flew around her bowed head,

dark and troubling despite all He had said.

"If he were God, why is He hanging here,

shamed, condemned, with thieves cursing near?

"If he were God, he'd have the power

to crush the Romans and make them cower!"

"If he were God, this couldn't be,

he'd be the King for all to see!"

What was it she prayed, as her friends moaned and cried?

His disciples but John all fled, but she never denied.

Steadfast and true, she held fast to the end,

though His hurts she couldn't soothe,

nor the wounds in His body mend.

To lose her First-Born son in this most terrible way,

she never could have guessed when he was a child at play.

Yet God had a Plan that was greater than she knew,

Her son was risen gloriously, ascending on high,

and He rose Lord and Savior,

and then she ceased to wonder, "Why?"

Part II:

Yet, friend, let us look twice at Maryam and view

her as scripture describes, to see her anew.

She was certainly admirable with very fine traits,

but few can identify with those who have such and rise to great renown,

not when most of us are quite ordinary with humdrum fates,

and never will be celebrities and the talk of the town.

Bible says, not CNN anchors, she "pondered" what God promised,

whether through Anna, Simeon, Angel Gabriel, and no doubt others.

As she thought and carefully considered what they had all said,

she probably weighed them as against her life experiences, not those of another.

It just could not compare or equal, being the mother of Messiah,

unless you considered Hannah and other mothers of great prophets.

Yet even so there was only one Messiah, and many past prophets,

so what she felt and saw happening she could not guess led to-- oh no! Not Mount Moriah?!

She could not escape that he was born God's Lamb, only to die,

and anyone who assured her less was telling a bold lie.

When would he take his golden scepter and rule his kingdom? When?"

Yet he spoke chiefly of a kingdom high above earth, and far beyond,

His Father's kingdom, while Roman crosses for Jews were being sawn.

He said that kingdom of heaven would be brought down,

through peace, love, joy, forgiveness, not by a bloody sword drawn.

But why couldn't her Son take the throne from them away,

and seat himself in the Temple, just as the prophetic words all say?

Why did he remain so lowly and serve the poor and sick,

and instead be the Lion of Judah and cast down the Roman boar?

There came forth only mild and gentle teachings

that could never raise a crowd of with great uproar.

Part III:

In their synagogue one awful day he read from Isaiah,

and said it was fulfilled in him, though no Messiah in him they saw;

no wonder the people rose up to cast him out,

they might have stoned him, or from the cliff thrown him, no doubt.

This was not supposed to happen, it was to all go another way,

yet even though she was his mother, he followed His Father, in all he did or say.

Not Joseph, of course, who was not Yeshua's father sown,

but His Heavenly Father, whom he came to reveal as his own.

Nobody could understand that, and she had only a slight inkling,

That brightened to a glorious revelation only after the Cross and divine reckoning.

Part IV:

Who was she really? It finally came down to: WHOM did she know?

It is the exact same for all us

since, friends, for the Most High God ordained it so.