My experience carrying crosses of illness and infertility involves long periods of waiting. It calls for a day-by-day faithfulness to walking a path that often seems to be going nowhere. In challenging seasons, it is encouraging to know that God is forming our hearts for good, but it can be so difficult to maintain that faithfulness as the days stretch to years. Thank God for Mother Mary to accompany us on the way! Although we tend to focus on her big yes–her Fiat–she too spent years waiting for God’s promises to be fulfilled, she too was quietly formed for a role she did not imagine for herself.

Mary spent her early years being faithful to God without knowing the amazing details of His plan for her life. The angel did not greet Mary as “full of grace” for nothing. In addition to her immaculate conception, Mary had spent the whole of her short life cultivating God’s grace in her heart. She welcomed God’s presence in her life and pursued relationship with Him simply for love’s sake. She did not know what God would eventually ask of her–it’s not like she was mentally and spiritually training herself to mother the Messiah. Rather, she was simply making space for the Lover of her soul to fill her life with grace, and through those graces He formed her for the next step in His plan. We can trace her footsteps. Aren’t we living just as little Mary did in those hidden years when we invite God into difficult situations, offer Him thanks, soak in the beauty of His creation, and draw near to Him through our loved ones? No future knowledge required, only relationship. He can take it from there.

Even as a direct, prayerful relationship with God formed Mary for her role in our salvation, she would also have been formed in those pre-Annunciation years by the culture of her people (as our own cultures form us). During Mary’s childhood, the Jewish people were eagerly waiting for the Messiah. Wise as He is, God’s words of promise to His people were also directed to prepare Mary in particular. How many times Mary must have sat in Nazareth’s synagogue, hearing proclaimed Isaiah’s words, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign; the young woman, pregnant and about to bear a son, shall name him Emmanuel” (Is 7:14). As much as they are meant to inform the rest of the world about God’s plan, those words formed Mary to receive God’s Son. God took special care to prepare Mary through the promises of the prophets, both as she heard their messages in her youth and in the preceding centuries as His words through them were collected. With Mary, we can sit waiting a long time for the Father to answer our cries and fulfill His promises. She reminds us that God always comes through, often in unexpected ways.

Before the angel appeared to her, Mary had no idea that she was the prophesied virgin in Isaiah. She was a simple girl. Maybe considering her own miraculous conception in her parents’ old age, Mary had some idea that she was made for a unique purpose. Tradition suggests that Mary intended from a young age to live as a consecrated virgin and may have had a servile role in the temple. Young and betrothed, Mary had expectations for her future informed by her circumstances and her desire to serve God. But she didn’t know the next step in His plan until He sent an angel to explain it to her. So Mary had to do what all of us do: pray and follow God’s will as best we can, applying general principles of God’s law to our specific situation. When the big reveal came, Mary laid aside her own ideas for the future to allow God to capture her heart in a new way.

What about us? Are we clinging to old expectations, or are we open to being surprised by God? Whatever season you are in, sister, I hope you know that this is not wasted time. While God is always forming our hearts, calling us to deeper relationship and fuller participation in His plan, He treasures the relationship He has with us now. The moments we spend speaking to Him in prayer, when we seek His forgiveness in Reconciliation, when He sees us act as spiritual mothers to His children, when we receive His Body into our own: the gift of our love is precious to Him. And the Lover of our souls is filling these hidden years with grace for us.

Emily Herring lives with her husband John in Iowa, but she is a Hoosier at heart. She enjoys hiking, birding, writing funny stories for her friends, experimenting in the kitchen, and long talks over cups of tea.