Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen?” -Luke 1:34

It’s morning as Garth and I stand together at the kitchen window, cradling glasses of fresh-pressed juice and watching the snow fall. “You have to make your health priority one,” I say.

“Yeah,” he says. “But how?”

We both think we know the answer: to step away more often and more completely from his work. But we don’t speak it. We just keep staring out the window. Because for an entrepreneur with a start-up and no budget for staff, it’s a seeming impossibility.

When the angel Gabriel told a teenage virgin she would soon give birth to the Son of the Most High, she asked the same question we’re asking. But how? 

Mary was troubled. Doubtful. She questioned. Tried to reason it out. Then ultimately, she chose to submit and trust without understanding. And that rugged path to faith led to a mountaintop view of God’s glory.

Considering the tone of so many of David’s psalms, I don’t think God expects blind faith. I think he understands when I’m unsettled and doubting. Maybe it’s simply the trailhead for yet another faith journey. Because when I arrive at the end of my reasoning skills and I’m tempted to file my latest trouble under I for Impossible, I can use that same God-given intellect to remember all the so-called impossibilities he’s flipped upside down in the past.

Garth’s back at work now, and outside the window, my view hasn’t changed. Snow drifts to the ground like it never plans to stop.

Lord, I can’t see the way. I don’t know the how. But I believe you’ve somehow already got this thing handled. I trust you to get us through it in your way, in your time.

Hallelujah anyway.