When the Weight of Promise Feels Too Heavy
Word StudyDevotionalTestimonial | When the Weight of Promise Feels Too Heavy
Key Scripture
“But Miryam kept all these matters, pondering them in her heart.”— Luke 2:19 (TS2009)
“And He went down with them and came to Natsareth, and was subject to them, but His mother kept all these matters in her heart.”— Luke 2:51 (TS2009)
The Greek Text
Luke 2:19
«ἡ δὲ Μαριὰμ πάντα συνετήρει τὰ ῥήματα ταῦτα συμβάλλουσα ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ αὐτῆς.»
συνετήρει (synetērei): to guard closely, preserve carefully, hold fast.
συμβάλλουσα (symballousa): to bring together, compare, weigh, wrestle with.
A truer sense would be: “Mary guarded all these words, wrestling them together in her heart.”
Luke 2:51
«καὶ ἡ μήτηρ αὐτοῦ διετήρει πάντα τὰ ῥήματα ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ αὐτῆς.»
διετήρει (dietērei): to keep continually, to guard diligently, to preserve through.
Here Luke intensifies the language: not only did Mary wrestle and weigh the words at His birth, but twelve years later she was still carefully, continually guarding them in her heart after Yahushua confounded the teachers in the temple.
Interpretation
So what does this really mean?
It means Mary wrestled with YHWH. It means she looked around, broken, bloody, and exhausted, and reality started to set in.
It means Mary didn’t simply “treasure” what was spoken over her—as many romantically claim. Luke is carefully telling us that Mary wrestled with YHWH, and why.
“Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.”
Think about that a moment. Have you ever considered that Mary, of all people, wrestled with YHWH? This is opposite of everything we’re told of Mary…
But why wouldn’t she struggle? She was human.
Luke is telling us she was turning it over, comparing, guarding, weighing… She was no longer on an adventure, she had just given birth, in a barn with animals surrounding her while she lay on a pile of bloody hay, and the barn must have smelled of afterbirth, blood, and animal feces (not to mention her own)…
But we cannot imagine this way. Why not? This is how Yahweh wanted us to see her—this is the point of The King, The Shepherd of the lost, being born in a barn.
So let’s dive in.
Here she is, a teenager, without her mother, and she must have been wondering what was happening, especially in relation to the promises made to her by God. YHWH said she was going to give birth to the King! But here she lay on a pile of blood-soaked hay.
I can imagine she’s not feeling that promise in this moment. Some imagine she was like an angel, blissful with no complaints—but let’s remember, the Bible is full of fallible people for a reason: because people are fallible.
I imagine she was no longer romanticizing what may come. Hormones flooding her body—reality was here, and she was sitting in it.
As the baby cried for milk and the Shepherd’s barged in the barn—Mary’s gratitude and blessing were becoming more like a reality she had not yet imagined…
And so, she began to wrestle… As we all wrestle.
We all wrestle to see what YHWH is doing. “This isn’t how I Imagined,” … Most of the time, we cannot see what He has planned—Mary couldn’t see it either, which is why Luke chose the words he did.
The Adoration of the Shepherds | by Bartolome Esteban Murillo
My Story of Wrestling
Mary’s body ached with exhaustion, her newborn cried for milk, and Yahweh’s promises swirled around her.
I know some of that weight.
When I first held my daughter in the hospital, my body was still broken from the cut of a surgeon’s knife, my arms untrained, and completely insufficient for holding life. And here I was holding the promise He said He would give. But it looked nothing like how I had imagined it.
I had never held a newborn before that moment. All alone, without my mother to guide me, I stared into her beautiful face—the most beautiful face I had ever laid eyes on, and I promised her we would get through this together—whatever it took.
But my story began long before her first cry. Years earlier, in Florida, I swallowed a bottle of pills and met something near death. I came back to a nurse yelling at me in the hospital as she shoved tubes down my throat. All I wanted was to get to God, and I woke up to the devil.
In the days following, Yahweh’s voice grew louder, calling me to leave everything familiar. Against all odds, I drove alone across the country to Seattle. It would be the first of many wilderness journeys.
Rest on the Flight Into Egypt
Mary holding the infant Yahushua with Joseph, ca. 1640.
Artist: Unbekannt | Public Domain
My Egypt Moment
In Seattle, I met the man (if I have to call him that)—a violent man who tried to kill me more than once. By the time my daughter was two-and half months old, I decided I wouldn’t be the reason she called me one day telling me that her boyfriend wanted to kill her.
Bruised all over from being beaten, raped, and strangled, I knew I had to flee. My Egypt moment came at midnight, October 31, 2001, when I boarded a plane with my newborn baby in my arms. For eighteen hours she slept peacefully without a sound—not one sound; not a cry, not a whimper, nothing but peaceful rest for eighteen hours straight. She had not slept that good her entire life. I know now, it was Yahweh who carried us out of bondage. Praise Him for His Fatherly Love and tender care of His children.
Angel Gabriel visits Mary (The Annunciation, Salesianerkirche Church, Vienna)
Why I Can No Longer Judge Mary
And like Mary, I wrestled. I didn’t always believe—so how can I blame her for doing the same? I had no clue what Yahweh was doing. Only recently have I seen all He has done, and I’m fifty-one, so I imagine that Mary, maybe at fifty-one, unseen by the Biblical scribes, had her own moments with Yahweh and made peace; because He is faithful and He does what He says He will.
I didn’t always defend Him when I should have—and I didn’t even know what I should be defending... But He knew. At times, I even blamed Him. But He never let me go.
I used to judge Mary for not standing beside Yahushua more boldly, for not shouting His defense when others mocked Him. I was angry because she stood by her other children, but not Yahushua. Mary stood with her other children as they attacked Him—how could she not remember all that YHWH had done for her?
How could she not remember? Truth is, how can we not remember?
We are just like Mary. We forget the promises because we see what is right in front of us, rather than keeping our eyes fixed on Him.
How can I judge her when I too have struggled to believe the promises spoken over me? Truth is, she was human. And in a world that emulates her and tries to turn her into a deity—that’s really hard to see sometimes.
I am human; a mother, daughter, wife, sister, and child, who must learn compassion in the wrestling. Who are you? What do you have to learn? What issues do you project onto people in the Bible—or the world around you?
The Lesson in Wrestling
Her story teaches me that it is not wrong to feel the weight of promise. It is not wrong to wrestle. What matters is that we keep the words—guard them, turn them over, weigh them, speak to YHWH about them, and commune with our Father in relationship. Trust He is who He says He is, and trust that Yahweh will make sense of all His promises in His own time.
Reflection Questions
What promises of Yahweh have you wrestled with, rather than “treasured”?
Can you see compassion for Mary—and yourself—in the wrestling?
Where has Yahweh carried you through your own “Egypt moment”?
Prayer
Abba, You see the weight I carry in my heart. You know the promises that feel too heavy, the ones I don’t fully understand. Teach me to guard them, to weigh them, and to trust You through the wrestling. Give me compassion—for myself, for others, and even for Mary—so that I may learn to rest in Your mercy.
Rooted in the Word
Mary’s wrestling is my wrestling. But Yahweh never leaves His children in Egypt. He delivers, He carries, and He fulfills every word He has spoken.
Declaration
I will not despise the wrestling. I will guard the promises, even when they feel too heavy, because Yahweh will bring them to pass in His time.
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