The Future Looks So Difficult

22 Nisan

April 22nd

 

 

Dear Diary,

It’s eventide once again, and the room is growing dim. The future looks so difficult. How will I survive if Yosef puts me aside and chooses another? How can I face the stares and snide remarks of my associates? Perhaps my own father will forbid me to live at home if Yosef convinces him I have been unfaithful. Occasionally a woman caught in adultery is even chased out of the city and stoned!! But no, surely Yosef, my dearly beloved Yosef, would never go to that extreme! He loves me! I know he does!

My thoughts are getting carried away. It is Yahweh’s Son that I am carrying. He will surely take care of His own. Yea, it is Yahweh’s son, but the mother is so human. El’ Elohim I will try my best to trust in You no matter what comes. I must fight these anxious thoughts. Oh Holy God, forgive me for being so worried and dispirited. Your precious Son deserves someone more courageous than I to nurture Him in the coming months and years, but since you deemed me worthy, I will do my best.

 23 Nisan

April ²³

Dear Diary’

Today was cloudy and dark; a melancholic sort of day. Even the companions whom I regularly meet at the well were not in the mood to linger and chat for long. I guess it is because there is a chill in the air. The clouds are dark and lowering and quite likely by nightfall the early rains will have begun in earnest. It sure feels like a day for huddling in our mud brick home as close to the little fire in the brazier as possible!

I wonder how my childhood friends will treat me once they can tell that I am carrying a child. Will they give me the look that so many reserve for aant’at of ill repute? I shiver to think of it!  I can imagine Shoshonna making malicious remarks to Tamara, but what about Abigail and Rebecca? Will they continue to treat me kindly?

When I was just a little child, I asked my Imma why she had called me Mary’am because I had just discovered that it meant bitter. I can remember like it was yesterday how she responded. She immediately dropped her spinning and reached out her arms to me. I snuggled on her lap while she tucked the corner of a blanket around my shoulder. This is what she told me.

“Oh, Mary’am,” she said, “you were such a tiny baby; so sweet and perfect. I wanted to find a name that would suit such a lovely child. Then I thought of the Mary’am in the Torah who was sister to Aaron and Mosheh. Do you remember the story?” she asked. I nodded vigorously, happy that I could tell my Imma I knew which story she meant.

“When I saw your tiny face,” she continued, “it seemed like Adonai would have something special for you to do, like He had for that other Mary’am and it just seemed like the right name.”

 She gave me an affectionate squeeze and a kiss on my nose before I ran off to play. I have never forgotten that story.