The Angel Gabriel appeared to me
again this year 
and announced,
“You will conceive and bear the Christ Child.” 

Hardly containing his exuberance, he went on.
“Beloved and cherished one,
you have been chosen
to participate in God’s grand project
to save the cosmos and everything in it!”

And then,
when he didn’t get the response he was hoping for,
he said,
“Don’t be afraid.”
He knew 
I was
and why.

It’s the how.

Thank you, Mary, for naming
the question that makes it hard not to fear.
How can this be? How will it happen?
What am I supposed to do, 
and how am I supposed to do it?
Not knowing 
winds me up like a top
and sends me spinning
around the room.

But Gabriel, 
sat down and, 
like Mary, patted his hand on the bed, 
making space for me and all my fears
to sit down with him.

Then, once again he explained
(as if this was the first time
I ever heard this),
“God will do it.
And it will be amazing.”

Credits and References:
Mary by Henry Ossawa Tanner. 1914 Creative Commons
The Question That Makes It Hard Not to Fear by Esther Hizsa, 2023

© Esther Hizsa, An Everyday Pilgrim, 2023.
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