Note: On Tuesdays and some Sundays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
Put yourself in Mary’s shoes. You have just been through a most bewildering year or so: An angel appeared to you. You became pregnant without having been with a man. Your aging relative has given birth and said some pretty amazing things. You have married. You have given birth. And now, at the temple, a place that should 
provide peace and calm, a man sees your family, says he’s now ready to die because he’s seen salvation, blesses your family, and then makes a strange statement—that you too will be pierced by a sword.
What to make of it? What does Mary make of it? Did Mary think about Simeon’s prophecy daily, as Jesus learned to talk and walk and pray and play and work? We don’t know. After Jesus is twelve and the Holy Family goes to Jerusalem for Passover, the curtain in essence is draw over their lives until he begins his public ministry. For many of us, it would have been something always out on the horizon, something to contemplate and worry over from time to time, if not daily. What would this prophecy bring to a life already turned upside down?
While we don’t know for certain, I suspect this was one of the many things Mary pondered in her heart from time to time, but she didn’t let it keep her from loving and trusting in the Lord. She didn’t let it keep her from loving and caring for her family She didn’t let it keep her from making friends and enjoying life. Why do I think this? The evidence is in Jesus.
May we learn from Mary’s example, and get on with the Lord’s business even as we ponder the way He is working in our lives.
