Scripture: Luke 1:38
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me according to your word.”
Most of us love the idea of surrender…
until it’s our life that’s spinning in a direction we did not choose.
Mary’s famous line —
“May it be to me according to your word” —
gets embroidered on pillows and printed on Christmas cards like it was whispered by someone who felt peaceful and ready and spiritually centered.
But let’s be real.
Mary was a teenager whose world had just exploded.
Nothing about her situation made sense.
She wasn’t given a timeline, or a manual, or an explanation that tied everything up in a neat bow.
She was given one disruptive, life-altering sentence… and an invitation to trust.
If we slow the scene down, it becomes clear:
Mary didn’t say “let it be” because she felt ready.
She said it because she felt held.
Held in uncertainty.
Held in fear.
Held in the mystery of a God who shows up in ways that don’t fit into our categories.
And that’s where most of us actually live.
Not in the perfect, confident, Hallmark-movie version of faith.
But in the honest version — the one where we don’t understand, don’t have clarity yet, and don’t feel particularly steady… but we still want to trust somehow.
We know what it is to be afraid of what a “yes” might cost.
We know what it is to want more information before stepping forward.
We know what it is to look at our real lives and wonder,
“God… are You sure this is the plan?”
And yet — here’s the gift of Mary’s story:
Faith doesn’t require us to be ready.
It invites us to be honest.
Mary’s words are not a posture of certainty.
They are a posture of openness:
“I don’t understand this.
I didn’t expect this.
I didn’t sign up for this.
But if You’re in it…
if You’re with me…
I will open my hands instead of clenching my fists.”
“Let it be” is not passive resignation.
It is courageous trust in the middle of a story that hasn’t resolved yet.
And maybe that’s the very thing God invites us into this Advent:
Not a perfect yes.
Not a confident yes.
But an honest, trembling, open-handed yes.
A yes that sounds something like:
“I don’t feel ready…
but I’m willing.”
Reflection
Where in your life do you feel unready right now?
What situation, relationship, decision, or season feels bigger than your capacity?
Where do you sense God nudging you — even gently — to loosen your grip and trust?
Practice
Write this prayer somewhere today — in your journal, on your phone, on a sticky note on your dashboard. Fill in the blank in your own words:
“God, I don’t fully understand ____________.
I don’t feel ready for it.
But if You are here,
give me the courage to say,
‘Let it be according to Your word.’”
That is the heart of Advent —
not certainty,
but a quiet, brave willingness to trust God
right in the middle of the unknown.
Grace and Peace,
Andrea